


To Dwell On Dreams

by HelenJay



Series: The Dream Trilogy [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action, Action/Adventure, Adventure, Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bromance, Crossing Parallels, Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter Friendship, Drarry Bromance, Drarry Frienship, F/M, Gen, Hogwarts Fifth Year, No Smut, Parallel Universes, eventual Dramione, journey story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-07 23:48:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 122,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4282620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelenJay/pseuds/HelenJay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>COMPLETE. Harry is lost. His parents are alive and Draco Malfoy is banging on his door. What is this place, how did he get here? And, most importantly, does he really want to leave?</p>
<p>Follow Harry during his Fifth Year at Hogwarts into an alternate universe, where his parents survived that fateful night in Godric's Hollow, but he soon finds out they weren't the only ones.  Lord Voldemort still looms over the magical community and it seems his interest in Harry has not waned after fifteen years.  Events quickly spiral out of hand and Harry must rely on some unlikely friends if he is to survive this strange world and get home.  But with everything he has ever dreamed of there, at his finger tips, which reality will he chose?</p>
<p>"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that Harry." J.K. Rowling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Parallel Lives

**Author's Note:**

> This story began a very, very long time ago.
> 
> In the middle of the night to be precise, on a stormy Tuesday in February 2002, where, impatient for the release of The Order of the Phoenix, I decided to have a go at writing my first, full-length fanfiction. I've always been obsessed with alternate reality stories, in books, tv, film and comics, and I'd been searching for a HP one to my liking. No one else seemed to share my level of passion though, so I figured I'd just start writing and see what happened.
> 
> What happened was a whole trilogy. And by 2011 I had come to the last chapter, and I didn't know how to end it. My writing had changed so much in almost a decade, so I thought I'd go back and tweak it a bit, and try and work out how to wrap it all up. That resulted in three years of complete re-writes, and the final version of the trilogy that you are about to read today. 
> 
> The Dream Trilogy is canon up until the end of Goblet of Fire, however as all seven books were published by the time I started the re-writes there's lots of post-OotP canon that I've been able to weave in. 
> 
> This story will eventually have a Dramione sub-plot, but it's quite minor. (Just so you're aware!) 
> 
> Um...I think that's enough from me for now! I hope you enjoy the story, it's been a labour of love for me for a very long time , so I'm delighted to finally share it with you guys on AO3! Book One is all going up today, then I'll update chapter by chapter for books Two and Three, usually on Mondays and Thursdays unless RL gets in the way. 
> 
> Oh! And if you want lots of fun extras for the books, such as artwork, soundtracks, casting, trivia etc, PLEASE follow the official Tumblr blog (@thehpdreamtrilogy/#The HP Dream Trilogy) or the Facebook Account (The HP Dream Trilogy).
> 
> Okay, enjoy the prologue! 
> 
> Helen xxx

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There’s just one more thing, actually, small thing, nothing to worry about.” Alex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The beginning is a little abstract, but all will be revealed soon...

Prologue -

   Parallel Lives

 

We live separate lives, can’t even organise

One more meeting of minds ain’t gonna make it right, no

There’s more humanity in just letting it be now

‘Cause I can’t seem to justify when we’re living separate dreams

Have we forgotten love, we’re lost in

 

Parallel lives,

Oh, you’re not the only one

We’re so entwined to lose it

To the passing of time

Oh, we came undone,

We came untied, we came untied

 

Roisin Murphy

 

   Alex lent his cheek against the cool marble pillar, and let his eyes flutter half closed. He wasn’t exactly tired – he didn’t sleep like he used to – but his brain was all clogged up and needed to stare into the middle distance for a moment or two and think of fluffy things. Several brown folders held shut by elastic bands rested precariously in his fingers, threatening to spill their contents onto the shiny marble floor. One of them was quivering, and he was pretty sure the other was smoking.

   Just one more minute, he thought, angling his shoulder so his upper torso was also pressed against the pillar. He let out a noise that resembled a purr.

   The clatter of the cleaner’s bucket being dragged along the corridor behind him snapped him back to his senses, and he jumped to attention, wiping something that was definitely not drool from his mouth. He nodded at the creature with the mop, who saluted back and carried on singing along to the song playing through the large headphones perched on his lumpy head. If Alex had to guess he’d say the caretaker was some form of troll, but he generally felt it rude to ask someone what their species was, so he’d spent the last three years mentally referring to him as the cleaner, or guy-who-likes-Kiss-and-Janis-Joplin.

   The area Alex was waiting in, had actually spent the last millennia worth of evenings waiting in, was a wide marbled entranceway filled with pillars like the one he’d just been dozing on, and numerous wooden doors scattered along the walls. He always waited outside the same one, though its occupant had changed several times over the centuries. This one had chosen to decorate the outside of her door with sheets of an unknown child’s finger painting, a periodic table and a flier from a kebab shop.

   The entrance hall resembled a more classical era, somewhere Aristotle would have enjoyed a good old stamp about, but as was per usual Alex didn’t really look like he belonged there. He wore floppy navy pirate boots whose soles had been replaced many times over, and tucked into them were some stonewashed Levi’s originals, ripped at the knees. His t-shirt was pretty faded but the words ‘Glastonbury 1970’ could still just about be made out amongst the design, and over that was a well fitted tailcoat, rolled up at the elbows and lined with fabric he was very proud to have won off Genghis Khan in a game of snap. Everything about him looked to be well-worn and well-loved, except for his hair which clearly stated he paid an extortionate amount for it to appear like he’d just fallen out of bed, and he didn’t care who knew it.

   He knew the report that evening wasn’t so different from the ones he gave almost every day, but he still felt slightly queasy at the news he had to deliver. He hoisted up the top file, flicked quickly to the right sheet of paper and ran his finger down the list of facts he hastily scrawled. True, situations like this didn’t generally pop up all that often, but they nearly always sorted themselves out fast enough. It was just the particular subject of the anomaly that had caught his attention.

   The electronic display on the door chirped and Alex looked up to see it now read ‘Enter!’ in a cheery neon green. He snapped the file shut again, pinged the rubber band back around it and strode over the door. He didn’t bother knocking and turned open the handle with a flourish.

   “Evening Jia!” he cried to the middle-aged Chinese woman hunched over the desk before him. Her hair was stuck out at all angles, escaping from the bun she had originally captured it in earlier that day, and there was ink smudged across several parts of her face. Coffee mugs littered the desk, along with stack upon stack of paper, a laptop, and an abacus. Not one of the five clocks in the room was at the correct time, but Alex knew for a fact Jia could tell him exactly how early or late they all were to the minute.

   She stared at him blearily as he clicked the door closed and bounded over to the chair in front of the heaving desk. “Hello my love,” she said, smiling to reveal the lipstick on her teeth. “How’s you?”

   “Yes, yes,” he said. “I’m grand, hunky dory, you?”

   “Only had eleven cups of coffee today,” she said proudly, typing something on her laptop. “I might get to go home soon.”

   Alex forced his most casual smile onto his face. “I’ll try not to keep you then,” he said sincerely.

   He launched into the usual updates, fishing out the relevant documents from his files and feeling quite proud that the elastic bands held out for him. “There were eighty three new variants created today, with Watchers organised for all but four.”

   “They turn you down?” asked Jia as she shuffled her papers and flicked some beads across her abacus.

   “Yes,” said Alex. “But only one threw a shoe at my head, so I’m calling it a win.” He stared at the paper he’d been looking at outside in the entrance way and drummed his fingers on his knee. He’d run out of other things to talk about.

   “That it?” asked Jia hopefully, hand already reaching for her handbag.

   Alex shifted in his seat and tried to keep his voice light. “There’s just one more thing, actually, small thing, nothing to worry about.”

   Jia’s face dropped, a defeated look on her as she sat back down. “That sounds like I should get the emergency procedures forms out.”

   “No,” replied Alex, waving a hand in disagreement. “Honestly, I wouldn’t normally even bother you with it, it’s just because it involves someone important, a key player.”

   Jia sighed and reopened her laptop, taking a sip of slightly congealed coffee. “Who?” she said, clicking away with her mouse until she’d brought up the right program.

   “Harry Potter.”

   She rubbed her nose, adding a new streak of ink. “Who?”

   “Oh,” said Alex, flicking through his papers until he found the notes he wanted. “He’s pretty important in my reality, in several thousand realities actually, he’s probably in some of your other ones?”

   Jia frowned and picked up a log book. “The name rings a bell now you mention it. He’s human I take it?”

   “Yes, but one of the magical ones – slightly less than one per cent of the population in my world can perform magic with the aid of a wand. Once they’ve been trained,” he added. He forgot sometimes how many possible worlds there were, and his manager took care of at least a dozen realities, some of them vastly different to his own. “When he was a baby Voldemort tried to kill him.”

   “Ahh,” said Jia. “Now I remember, he’s that nasty fellow that killed everybody back in the eighties.”

   “Yes, evil wizard,” said Alex encouragingly. “Killed far too many people, including Harry’s parents, but when old Voldy tried to zap him, the spell backfired and poof! No more bad guy.”

   Jia was making notes on a sheet of paper that already contained a series of bullet points and a game of hangman. “Yes, yes,” she muttered. “You’re quite right, there are thousands of realities with that, just didn’t recognise the name. So,” she looked up, her tired eyes bright. “What’s he done, how much trouble are we talking about?”

   “Well,” said Alex, hopping to his feet so he could pace along the little office. “Like I said, in my reality Harry grew up an orphan, living with his beastly aunt and uncle, then went to the British magic school Hogwarts when he was eleven. He’s had an unusual amount of run-ins with what remains of Voldemort, but normally he’s got himself a couple of mates to keep him out of too much bother.” Normally, Alex added ruefully to himself. Where had they been when all Hell broke loose, he wanted to know. Talk about letting the side down.

   Jia was on the laptop. “Names?” she barked.

   “Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.” He gave her a moment’s more typing, then carried on. “Harry has a godfather, his name is Sirius Black, and when James and Lily Potter were murdered he was wrongly accused by the Ministry of Magic of being the one who betrayed them to Voldemort. It was in fact another friend of the Potters’, a Peter Pettigrew, who was the traitor. Sirius went to jail without trial, but broke out a couple of years ago, at which time Harry learnt the truth and has assisted his Godfather in remaining one step ahead of the Ministry ever since.”

   Jia’s fingers were flying over the keys, her eyes tracing through what looked like an incomprehensibly large tree glowing blue on the black screen. “Yes,” she said, nodding and blinking furiously. “This happened in several other thousand realities too, I’m still not getting where the problem is.”

“Oh it’s coming,” said Alex, rubbing the back of his head. “Yesterday Sirius was recaptured. He’s likely to be sent back to prison, or worse.”

   Jia’s index finger was following along the tree. “That’s happened in half a dozen places too.”

   “Yes,” replied Alex with a grimace. “But in my reality Harry then lost his temper by a Dimensional Hotspot and propelled himself into a reality when his parents were never murdered and Sirius never imprisoned.”

   Jia raised her eyebrows. “Ah,” she said, taking her finger away from the tree.

   “Now, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem,” explained Alex hastily before Jia could jump to any wrong conclusions. “I’ve had a couple of instances like this before, but being that he’s a wizard, surrounded by other wizards, he should be able to get himself home without too much of a headache.”

   “Too much of a headache?” clarified Jia. “Are you serious? You’ve lost someone in the _wrong reality?”_

   Alex held up a finger. “Yes,” he said, trying to sound confident. “But he’s a resourceful little chap, and I’m sure it won’t be long before he and his friends are working on the spell to bring him home, it can be done.”

   Jia let her head drop onto the desk. “But what,” she garbled, her mouth mashed up to the wood. “About the consequences in the other reality?” She lifted her head back up, a red crease running down the side of her face. “He’ll derail it entirely!”

   She was right, but Alex also knew it wasn’t entirely hopeless. “There’s still a version of the world where he doesn’t show up, and that will continue to branch out as usual. This reality he’s now created will fix itself too in time, I promise, it’s what happened last time.”

   “Last time,” she said, shaking her head. “Who on the many Earths let you remain a Watcher after this happened before?”

   “A handsome, clever, very wise-”

   “Oh give it a rest,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I want hourly progress reports.”

   “Yes ma’am,” said Alex sheepishly.

   “Where is he now?”

   Alex sat back down, a small sense of relief creeping into his stomach. It was always best to discuss a problem out loud he found, it made everything seem much better. Even if the person you were talking to wanted to fire you. “Sleeping, the crossover takes quite a bit out of you.”

   Jia took in a deep breath. “And have you at least liaised with the Watcher from the other reality, the one from before this Potter boy showed up?”

   “Yes it’s all in hand, although she is having some trouble finding a new representative for the new reality.”

   “That’s the least of our worries.” She flipped her log book closed and folded her hands in front of her. “I want to know the second this Potter boy is back home, understood?”

   “Right you are,” said Alex, hastily collecting up all his documents and backing away from the desk. “I’m sure it will be fine, he’s a sensible lad, he’ll get himself back across in a jiffy I’m sure. Nothing to worry about.”

   “Nothing to worry about,” murmured Jia as Alex gave her one last grin and slipped out the door. A moment passed as she stared at the tree-like diagram, the spiral of infinite possibilities, for every worthy decision, there was a branch, an offshoot. “Nothing to worry about,” she said, and took another sip of congealed coffee.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Confused? Intrigued? Excited? Good! Keep reading (and please review!)


	2. Over The Rainbow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I just had this bad feeling in my gut when I woke up.” Harry Potter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You made it to Chapter One! Now we get to find out some of what's *actually* going on...

Chapter One -

   Over The Rainbow

 

Somewhere over the rainbow

Way up high

There’s a land that I heard of

Once in a lullaby

 

Somewhere over the rainbow

Skies are blue

And the dreams that you dare to dream

Really do come true

 

Someday I'll wish upon a star

And wake up where the clouds

Are far behind me

Where troubles melt like lemon drops

Away above the chimney tops, that's where you'll find me

 

Judy Garland

 

   Harry’s eyes flew open. His heart was racing as he scanned the near total darkness, shaking off the deep sleep he’d jerked himself out of so suddenly. His hands gripped at the bed covers, his feet tangled lower in the bed against the material damp from his sweat.

   As he breathed in and out, he began to calm, the familiarity of the scene slowly coming back to him. It was so dark because the curtains around his four poster bed were drawn, and, after he’d retrieved his glasses, a glance at his alarm clock told him it was too early for sunrise just yet.

   It was a dream, he told himself, only a dream. Though what that dream might have been he had no idea. The details had already trickled away from him, and all he had left was an unpleasant sort of tension tugging at his guts.   He exhaled definitively, trying to slow his heart rate as he rubbed his forehead and blinked perspiration from his prickly eyes.

   He was no stranger to troublesome dreams, the life he’d had, the things he’d seen. Sometimes they were ugly memories resurfacing, sometimes anxieties of future scenarios manifesting themselves in his subconscious. But as he squirmed free of his bed sheets, he found he couldn’t recall a single detail of last night’s events.

   He yawned and stretched, deciding it probably didn’t matter if he remembered the dream or not. He was wide awake now, and although his alarm wasn’t due to go off for another half an hour he chose to click the button and get up now instead.

   The stone floor was so cold in the Gryffindor boys’ dormitory, but after over four years Harry was used to it, especially as they were getting into winter now. He still had to stifle a hiss as he swung his bare feet out and tapped them gingerly onto the floor.

   Grabbing his wash kit, he poked his head out to see that the other boys’ curtains were still drawn with no movement behind, so he dashed from his bed to their shared bathroom, and hopped from foot to foot as he brushed his teeth quietly.

   As he scrubbed, he tried again to remember the dream that had woken him so harshly. He’d already tried telling himself it didn’t matter, but his brain was scratching away at the problem like an itch. He rinsed his mouth with water then splashed some on his face, studying his reflection as he patted his skin dry. His lightning bolt scar looked just the same as ever, but he touched it all the same, concentrating to see if it hurt any more than usual. He felt nothing though, going some way to convince him the nightmare hadn’t been anything to do with Voldemort, but the uneasiness still sloshed in his stomach.

   He was halfway tempted to go back into the bedroom and wake up Ron to ask his advice, but he knew it would only put him in a bad mood, and Harry was better off waiting an hour or so until his best friend had surfaced properly. So instead he snuck back into the dorm, pulled on the first jeans and jumper his hands found in the dim light, yanked them on with a pair socks that probably didn’t match, followed by his well worn trainers. Wrapping a scarf around his neck for good measure, he pocketed his wand and crept across to the door, slipping out into the corridor without waking any of the other four boys.

   He thought maybe Hermione might be up in the common room, cramming in some extra homework. Since they’d started their Fifth Year she’d been obsessing over their O.W.L.s, despite Harry and Ron’s repeated reminders that they were not until next summer. But if she was up early as well, she was not in the Gryffindor common room. In fact, Harry could see quite clearly as he arrived down the stairs that no one was, and the fire was only flickering low, the embers still dying down from the night before.

   He checked his watch. It was still before curfew, but only slightly, so he decided to risk it without going back up for his invisibility cloak and ventured out into the main body of the school.

   The portrait of the Fat Lady yawned. “Oh goodness me,” she murmured. “What time is it?”

   “Just before seven,” whispered Harry kindly. “Go back to sleep.”

     The Fat Lady muttered something about pineapples and snuggled down against her frame as Harry clicked it carefully shut. With any luck he wouldn’t run into anyone else, or if he did they would be as easy to encourage back to sleep. It was a Friday and he didn’t fancy starting off the weekend in detention.

   He thought about seeing if Hermione was in the library, but figured he would probably see her at breakfast anyway, so turned the other way and headed towards the owlery, careful not to tread too loudly and keeping his wand unlit so as not to attract attention.

   He always got a fluttering sensation of apprehension when he thought about messaging his godfather Sirius Black, and every time he had done over the past year he had almost talked himself out of it. But having Sirius was like what he’d imagined having a family might be like, if that family was a wrongly accused murderer on the run from the ministry, living on the outskirts of Hogsmeade in a dank cave with a hippogriff. Harry pulled a face as he slipped down a hidden passageway, and figured there was probably no one else in the world that had a family like that, but all he had to compare it to was a lifetime with the Dursleys. Being related to flesh-eating slugs would probably be a step up from Harry’s aunt, uncle and cousin though, so he was quite happy to have Sirius any way that he came.

   He knew dropping him a note put him in a small amount of danger, but everything Sirius did came with the risk of being caught Harry argued with himself. And the sick feeling in his stomach from the dream wasn’t going away, so he figured just a quick chat would possibly help. Besides, Sirius was always delighted to hear from him.

   It didn’t take long to ascend to the tower where all the students’ owls were housed, and as it was so early most of them were still awake, hooting softly and ruffling their feathers. Harry couldn’t help but creak the old door as he moved inside, but he hoped there was no one close enough to hear him. “Hedwig,” he said gently to the parliament of perched birds, stepping carefully around the droppings over to where an old desk stood with a stack of parchment, quill and well of ink. Within a moment his faithful pet owl had hopped off her stand and taken to the air, flying past the other hundreds of birds to come rest on his shoulder.

   He only took a minute or two to pen his short message. “Dear Padfoot,” he began, using Sirius’ nickname in case the note got intercepted. “Had a funny dream, just wanted to check you were okay. H.” Hedwig stuck out her foot obediently for Harry to tie the strip of parchment too, and she flew out the window within seconds.

   Harry felt better for even just writing the note, and headed out of the cold owlery to slowly wander down to the Great Hall. It wasn’t long until breakfast would appear, and after being awake and shivering for almost an hour he was looking forward to some hot tea and toast. Sirius would probably rip it out of him for being a wuss and sending that silly note, but Harry didn’t care. In fact the thought made him smile.

   The hall was a under half full when Harry arrived, but he wasn’t that surprised to see Ron and Hermione at the Gryffindor table, a space between them saved for him.

   “Hey!” said Ron through a mouthful of eggs. “I was starting to think you’d been kidnapped by trolls!” He swallowed and grinned as Harry sat down.

   “And I can see you mounted a search mission immediately,” he said dryly, making Ron laugh. Hermione rolled her eyes.

   “The Fat Lady said you’d already gone out.” She reached under the table and pulled up a familiar bag to plonk in Harry’s lap. “I made the boys go back and get your things.”

   Harry smiled at her. “Thanks,” he said, leafing through to see Hermione had obviously instructed them what books to put inside as well. He was half touched, half exasperated that she knew his timetable better even than he did.

   “So where were you?” asked Seamus Finnigan from across the table to their right.

   Dean Thomas sniggered. “Yeah, how were the trolls?”

   Ron made a rude gesture with his fingers and Harry smirked as he reached over and helped himself to fresh toast, crispy bacon and scrambled eggs, the nausea from his dream forgotten.

   “So?” pressed Hermione. “Where were you?”

   “Went for a walk,” said Harry, not looking up. “Woke up early, couldn’t get back to sleep.”

   He’d hoped Hermione would drop it, but she just leant in to whisper, which obviously made the boys give them the eye. “Was it something to do with...” She dropped her voice even further. _“You-Know-Who?”_

   Harry glared at her, but she matched him. “No,” he said eventually. It was the truth after all. But her words still brought up the usual fury and helplessness he always felt when he considered that Voldemort was out there, that he’d seen him come back with his own eyes, and yet no one would believe him. And then there was that Umbridge woman...

   His expression must have darkened, because Hermione said “Ooh, post!” a little too cheerfully. Harry wasn’t expecting anything, so he was surprised to see Hedwig to come flying in with the other owls, landing on his shoulder and extending her leg triumphantly.

   Hermione spotted the note midway through shaking open her Daily Prophet, and opened her mouth to say something, but clamped it shut again. Perhaps she was weary of Harry after her Voldemort question. Whatever the case, Ron jumped in for her anyway.

   “What’s that mate?” he asked, and had the unusual good sense to keep his voice down. Luckily, Dean was informing Seamus and Neville Longbottom of the football scores he was reading from the back of a Muggle newspaper, and the other two boys would probably have gotten smacked with it if they’d stopped paying attention.

   Harry unravelled the message in one hand, and fed Hedwig a corner of toast with the other. “It’s from Padfoot,” he said, genuinely surprised. He hadn’t expected a reply so quickly.

   “What does it say?” asked Hermione.

   “He wants to have a quick chat, at lunchtime, the usual spot.” He quickly explained how his bad dream had spooked him, so when he’d left earlier he’d written to his godfather. He wondered now if that was such a good idea. He hadn’t expected Sirius to respond with a meeting, just a note to tell him off for being a pillock.

   “Do you think everything’s okay?” asked Hermione.

   “Yeah,” said Ron dismissively. “He probably just wants to chat, like Harry said.”

   They finished their breakfast not long after the post arrived, and gathered up their things to head to their first lesson. “Hey,” said Harry, hanging back a step with Hermione. “I’m sorry I got ratty.”

   She waved her hand before he could say anything more though. “We’re all worried about him,” she said. “Don’t give it another thought.”

   They split up for the first half of the morning, but came back together for History of Magic. By this time Harry’s early start and large breakfast was getting to him, and he had to rely on Ron to jab his thigh with his quill every time he started nodding off. Professor Binns droned on regardless, but at least this way Hermione wouldn’t make him go all through it again later.

   “So, where are you going to find a fireplace?” asked Hermione quietly as they moved out from the classroom, voices in a loud hub as people made their way to the last lunch before being freed for the whole weekend. Harry shrugged and looked around.

   “Oh, there’s an old History classroom near here,” he said, looking around. He knew this, because their old teacher and friend Remus Lupin had tutored him against Dementors there. It was for that same reason Harry always avoided going back. But most other people didn’t like going there because Peeves the Poltergeist had a habit of hanging around and writing rude words on the board, so it was almost certain to be empty. “I’m sure I won’t be long.”

   Hermione and Ron nodded at him. “See you in a minute then,” said Ron.

   Harry was able to hang back easy enough as the rest of the students dispersed, their minds on their food and not on his lurking. Then it was a simple case of doubling back and finding the right room.

   It was locked, but a quick _“Alohomora”_ soon fixed that. Peeves had indeed been here recently from the looks of the fresh chalk scrawled across the blackboard, but mercifully he wasn’t there now. Harry didn’t really feel like chasing him out, least he told a member of staff that he was hanging around where he shouldn’t be.

   He closed the door and looked around in the dim November light. The weather was gloomy outside, but he could still see all the desks and chairs stacked up against the walls. The fireplace was all but hidden by the furniture, and Harry only bothered to move away a couple of bits before giving up and just crawling under the tables. He’d already made sure earlier in the day that he had some of the silver Floo powder to render the flames green and harmless, as well as enable their communication. Harry spoke the location of the house Sirius had used the last few times for their chats. It belonged to a wizard who worked long hours and wasn’t likely to come home and find Sirius sat on his kitchen floor. Plus, he had a dog flap.

   But Harry still felt nervous as he poked his head in, far worse than he had done at the owlery. If anything went wrong and the wizard was there, they’d agreed he had to play it cool and get out again before he spotted his scar and reported him to Dumbledore. But once he opened his eyes, Harry was able to see he had nothing to worry about.

   Sirius Black was sat under a ragged looking blanket, twigs in his dark, matted hair. He however did not notice Harry’s appearance right away, as he was too engrossed with tickling the belly of a large, brown Newfoundland. “Who’s a good boy!” cooed the grown man with enthusiasm as the bear-like dog wriggled and lolled his pink tongue from the corner of his drooping mouth, giving him the impression he was laughing. “Yes you are, yes you are!”

   Harry sniggered, causing the coals to fidget and the big dog suddenly righted himself in one fluid motion, and barked loud and deep.

   Sirius also jumped guiltily, but soon relaxed when he saw it was only Harry that had disturbed him and his canine friend. “Shh Theodore,” he said, stroking the animal. “It’s alright, you big lump.” He grinned at Harry; he looked tired but there was distinct happiness in his eyes. “Hey mate,” he said to him, shooing off the big dog, who obligingly lumbered away to a tattered looking basket and began chewing on a bit of hyde that once might have resembled a shoe. 

   Harry knew he was at least a dozen miles away, but he couldn’t help feel closer when he was right there in front of his nose. “You alright?” he asked.

   “Me?” said Sirius. “Fine, of course, how about you?” He didn’t look fine, in fact he looked hungry and dirty.

   Harry had learned a little while back from the Weasleys that Sirius had a family home in London, and that Dumbledore had tried to persuade him to move back there for his own safety. But Sirius had refused apparently, choosing to remain on the run. Harry wasn’t entirely sure why, and the only information Ron’s dad had been able to offer was that the Blacks were such a vile family, so maybe Sirius preferred his cave and Beaky the hippogriff to his childhood home.

   Harry tried not to let any of his concern show on his face. “Yeah,” he said, shrugging as much as he could with half his body in a fireplace. “Fine, sorry to trouble you.”

   “Your dream,” said Sirius, raising an eyebrow. “Was it about-”

   “No,” said Harry cutting him off. “At least I don’t think so. I don’t remember it, I just had this bad feeling in my gut when I woke up.”

   Sirius went to reply, but suddenly snapped his head up instead.

   “What’s-” Harry started to say, but Sirius silenced him, grabbing his wand from where his doggy self had dropped it to the floor, and got to his feet.

   “Harry you should go,” said his godfather. But Harry wasn’t having any of that.

   “No,” he said, wiggling in the fire. “I’m coming through, I can help.”

   Sirius held a stern finger up to him. “It’s nothing,” he insisted. “Probably just a cat. Someone might notice if you come all the way through the Floo Network.” Harry tried to protest, but Sirius shook his head. “I’m fine, I’ll just transform, go,” he said.

   Harry didn’t want to leave, but Sirius had his stubborn face on. “Okay,” he said. “But be careful, and send me a message later.”

   Sirius winked at him. “Will do kiddo.”

   Harry retracted his head from the green flames, and was back in the empty History of Magic classroom once more. He sat there for a minute, feeling guilty and wretched. He shouldn’t have left him – what was that noise he’d heard?

   Was he really in trouble?

   He almost went back into the flames, but he reminded himself of Sirius’ warning . He didn’t know what he would be sticking his head back in to, and he might do more harm than good.

   So, not feeling particularly good about it, he crawled awkwardly back out from under the table, extinguishing the flames as they turned back to orange and red. He picked up his satchel, moved the couple of chairs he’d repositioned back to where he’d found them, then exited the old classroom, careful to lock the door again just like he’d found it.

   Hermione had saved him some shepherd’s pie, as by the time he got back down to the Great Hall they were already on dessert. But he just poked at it listlessly. “Everything okay?” she asked tentatively. Harry swallowed.

   “Yeah I’m sure it’s fine,” he said, hoping his voice sounded more convincing than he felt. “You know how careful he has to be. We just had to cut the conversation a little short.”

   Ron wanted to know every detail about the noise that had distracted Sirius, but the truth was Harry hadn’t even heard it.

   Hermione flicked her hair behind her shoulders. “I’m sure he was right,” she said, making sure not to mention any names. “It was probably nothing and he’ll drop you a line later. Come on, otherwise we’ll be late for Charms.”

   Harry let himself be guided through the rest of the day’s lessons. He wasn’t paying attention at all to Professor Flitwick and got himself embarrassed when he was caught out and couldn’t answer a question when asked. But try as he might he couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad had happened to his godfather.

   Hermione almost lost her temper with him in Potions when he spoiled their brew, but she bit her tongue and he apologised again and again. “It’s fine,” she said, clearing up the ruined project with a flick of her wand whilst Professor Snape glared at them. “We’ll just start again, no problem.”

   Harry nodded, trying to snap out of his funk. “He’s fine,” he breathed to himself, but Hermione still replied.

   “I’m sure he is,” she said with conviction.

   Harry was relieved when they were finally let out at the end of the day, and instead of heading to dinner with everyone else made his excuses. He wanted to check his room in case Hedwig had left him a note from Sirius there, and until he knew everything was okay he didn’t think he could eat anything anyway.

   But his room was empty. Nothing to indicate he had a message waiting for him, so Harry traipsed dejectedly back through the empty common room and headed back to the owlery. Hedwig was on her usual perch, nothing attached to her legs, and Harry had to accept Sirius had not responded.

   “Yet,” he said out loud to himself. Sirius hadn’t written anything _yet._ He might still be making his way back to the cave; if someone had disturbed them, if he’d had to take extra precautions then it would take him that much longer to get back. He couldn’t think the worst yet, he had to stay positive.

   This line of thought lasted almost until he got back to the Gryffindor common room.

   “Oh Potter,” said an all too familiar voice scornfully. Harry felt his nerves flare in anger, but he just clamped his jaw and wrapped his fingers tighter around his wand as he turned to face the blond boy addressing him.

   “Malfoy,” he said curtly. “You’re a long way from the dungeons.”

   Malfoy had the audacity to laugh, and something about his manner put Harry on edge, even more so than normal. Draco Malfoy glanced down at his gleaming prefect badge and crossed his arms, leaning against the wall casually. “I thought it was my duty to inform you, before word broke out.” He grinned nastily. “I know everyone else will get the wrong idea.”

   “What?” snapped Harry, unamused. “Wrong idea about what?”

   Malfoy’s mouth twitched and his eyes danced. He pushed himself off of the wall and stepped closer to Harry. “You don’t have any idea, do you.” It was statement rather than a question, but Harry didn’t bite. He just continued to glare as Malfoy took another step closer. “You know, and I know, the position my father has,” he said softly, his eyes on the painting of an empty pastoral scene to Harry’s left. His gait made it seem like he was confiding a big secret to Harry. “The _friends_ he has.”

   The emphasis on the word ‘friends’ left Harry in no doubt. The last time he had seen Lucius Malfoy had been by Voldemort’s side in the graveyard after his resurrection, professing his unwavering loyalty, trying to claw back any doubt his master may have had as to why he’d abandoned him after his apparent death. But Harry had escaped, only just with his life.

   Cedric Diggory had not been so lucky.

   “I know all too well,” said Harry. “Him and Voldemort tried their very best to kill me.”

   Malfoy’s eyes narrowed slightly at the use of his Dark Lord’s name, but he smoothed over it quick enough. “Then you know I’m not lying when I say I know precisely which of your daddy’s friends it was that betrayed you and your parents, that got them killed.”

   Harry’s insides ran cold. “Do you have a point?” he snarled, feeling like he might break his wand in his effort not to fire it.

   “Only that everyone else is mistaken,” said Malfoy, dropping his grey eyes from the painting to meet Harry’s. “They’ll think you’ll be happy. They might actually congratulate you.”

   Harry couldn’t trust himself to speak, and to make matters worse Malfoy burst out laughing. “Oh you still don’t get it, do you?” he said, delighted. “Wormtail? Black? Well I guess you’ll hear it soon enough. It seems the dog catcher’s going to get a nice Christmas bonus this year...”

   Harry lost his battle with his fist; but instead of using it to fire his wand, he smashed right it into Malfoy’s smug, pale face.

   The other boy yelled and staggered back, blood exploding from his nose and splashing over his Slytherin uniform.

   “You’re LYING!” cried Harry, a noise like a whistle going off in his head. He thought maybe one or two of his fingers may be broken, but he couldn’t really register anything other than what Malfoy had said, or _hadn’t_ said.

   Malfoy had lost all his humour and drew his own wand, pinching his nose in fury. “This is what you deserve.” He growled as Harry aimed his wand back at him. “All of you, you’ll fall before The Dark Lord, and your _dog_ is just the first to go!” He wiped the back of his hand against his bloody nose and inspected the damage. “Well,” he said coldly. “After that coward Diggory of course.”

   Harry made to fire on him, but Malfoy threw up a shield charm before he could. He didn’t really care though, his mind was already a million miles away racing through all the possibilities.

   It couldn’t be true, he told himself numbly as he lowered his wand and broke into a run. They couldn’t have got Sirius, not again.

   “You’re _welcome!”_ called Malfoy spitefully to his back, but Harry had already forgotten him. His legs took him as fast as he could go, heading straight for the headmaster’s office.

   Dumbledore would know, he told himself. Dumbledore would tell him it wasn’t true.

   “Potter be careful!” scalded Professor McGonagall as he sprinted past, but he didn’t even pause to apologise. He had to get to Dumbledore.

   “Lemon,” he panted as he skidded to a halt in front of the gargoyle guarding the entrance. “Sherbet lemon.” The statue nodded respectfully in response to Harry’s knowing the password, and jumped aside to let him past.

   Harry took the stairs two at a time, his vision swimming in front of him. It couldn’t be true, it just couldn’t.

   He burst through the door at the top of the stairs without even knocking. “Headmaster I’m so sorry,” he gasped. “But I just-”

   It took him a second to realise that Professor Dumbledore was not alone. There, sat in front of his desk, were Ron and Hermione. All three of them snapped their heads around to face him as he came to a halt in the middle of the office.

   “Harry,” said Dumbledore, rising to his feet. “I just sent Fawkes out to find you, I had a message, from the Ministry.”

   But Harry barely heard him, or even looked at him for that matter.

   The tears streaming down Hermione’s face told him all the truth he needed to know.

 

***

 

   “It’s all my fault,” said Harry, the horror of the reality sinking in.

   “No,” said Dumbledore firmly, conjuring him a chair to sit beside Hermione. “If it were not for you Sirius would have been recaptured long ago.”

   “Well how else did they find him?” he argued. “How did this happen?”

   “We’re not certain as yet,” said Dumbledore. “Please, Harry, sit.”

   Harry didn’t want to sit, he wanted to move, to do something. But his knees felt like jelly, and after a moment he couldn’t help but give into gravity and sank into the chair.

   The Ministry had Sirius.

   This time they would never let him go.

   “The professor’s right,” said Hermione, blowing her nose and hiccupping down a sob. “You did everything you could.”

   “I shouldn’t have written to him,” Harry argued, his anger and denial rising inside of him. “It was just a stupid dream, what was I thinking!”

   “Hey,” snapped Ron stubbornly. “It wasn’t you that betrayed him in the first place, it was Wormtail. And it also wasn’t you who didn’t bother to give him a trial.”

   Hermione turned to Dumbledore, wide-eyed. “Surely they’ll try him now, won’t they?” she asked.

   The look of doubt on the headmaster’s face made Harry feel physically sick.

   “No,” he insisted, shaking his head. “No, we’ll contact them, we’ll give testimony. We should have just done that last year, when we learned the truth.”

   Dumbledore gave a heavy sigh. “Harry,” he began, but Hermione cut across him.

   “No, he’s right!” she said excitedly. “We can take some Veritaserum, how can they deny what we have to say if we’re using truth serum?”

   “Yeah!” cried Ron. “Sirius should take some too, why didn’t anyone do that before!”

   “For the same reason they won’t do it now,” said Dumbledore darkly, and the flutter of hope Harry had felt died in his chest. “Because they’ll want to make an example out of him, and out of you too I’m afraid.” He looked directly at Harry.  “Sirius is a murderer as far as our people are concerned, and after all the bad press you’ve caused them in the wake of Voldemort’s return, the Ministry – Fudge in particular – will want to drum up some support from this.” Harry’s heart contracted as Dumbledore held his gaze. “I can imagine there will be an element of spiteful revenge in his thinking as well I dare say.”

   Harry swallowed, not believing what he was hearing. “But,” he uttered, blood pounding in his ears. “He’s _innocent._ And Voldemort _is_ back! _”_

   The headmaster dropped his eyes and said nothing, his sadness rolling off him in waves.

   “No,” said Harry as Hermione stifled another sob as quietly as she could and covered her eyes. “No this isn’t right, there has to be something we can do!”

   “My dad,” said Ron. “He might know some other people at the Ministry who’d be willing to listen, who could help?”

   Dumbledore looked up, his blue eyes a little brighter. “Yes,” he said. “I will contact Arthur immediately. Kingsley Shacklebolt as well. They will do what they can in the time we have left.”

   Hermione’s cries froze in her throat, and Harry caught her glance. “Time before what?” asked Harry. Dumbledore pursed his lips, looking between the three anxious students. “Time before _what?”_ Harry repeated, standing with such force he knocked his chair over backwards.

   “I believe,” said Dumbledore slowly and softly. “They will not risk Sirius escaping a second time. I believe they will push for a Dementor’s Kiss to be performed.

   “No!” shouted Ron and Hermione at the same time.

   “That’s as good as killing him!” ranted Ron.

   “They can’t take his soul, he won’t be human anymore,” cried Hermione, clenching the tissue in her fist so tight it was shredding. “He’ll just be a zombie, a husk-”

   Harry stumbled and gabbed the desk to keep him upright. This was all his fault. Cornelius Fudge was going to execute his godfather to prove he was more powerful than Harry, to prove that Voldemort wasn’t back, that he was in charge once and for all.

   “Harry,” cried Ron, jumping up to steady him. “It’s okay, we’ll think of something, we’ll save him.”

   “What?” argued Harry bleakly. “If the Minister of Magic himself won’t listen to the truth, who will?”

   “We will exhaust all means available to us,” assured Dumbledore, quill already in hand as he began writing to Ron’s dad. “We will not let him down, we will have a few days at least.”

   Hermione had grabbed his hand and was squeezing it. “I promise we won’t give up,” she said. “Let’s leave the professor to work, shall we? We can have a cup of tea and think what else to do okay? It’s not over yet, it’s not.”

   Harry was too numb to argue, so after a moment he just gave a nod.

   “Harry,” said Dumbledore. “You have my word I will not rest until he is free once more. We let him down; all those years he was in Azkaban. I won’t let them take his life away.”

   Again, Harry just gave a nod. Hermione blew her nose for the final time, shook herself and stood up beside Ron. “Come on,” she said, her voice less shaky as she rubbed Harry’s shoulder. “Let’s go back home.”

   “I don’t want people to ask me about it,” said Harry, something like panic gripping him. “Malfoy said-”

   “Malfoy’s an idiot,” said Hermione fiercely. “We won’t let anyone near you, and if they’re your friends they’ll understand.”

   “And if they don’t then sod them,” chipped in Ron.

   Harry actually managed a weak smile, and looked over to see Dumbledore had already finished his messages. He stood up and moved to the window, looking out as a bird so bright and colourful you would think he was on fire swooped down and landed on the sill. “Thank you Fawkes,” said the headmaster. “Take these directly to their recipients, as fast as you can.” Fawkes the phoenix let out a call that sounded like a melody, and flew back out into the night.

   “Okay,” said Harry, regaining his composure a little. “You’re right, there must be something we can do, we’ll keep working.”

   “All night,” said Ron.

 

***

 

   The three of them left Dumbledore’s office side by side, traipsing down the stairs and venturing back out into the corridor. It was already gone seven o’clock, and they passed a few students in gaggles, heading back to their house dormitories after whatever club or activity they’d been engaged in. Harry was blissfully grateful to every single one of them that walked on past, not raising their heads or asking any questions. Who knew already? he thought to himself. He didn’t want anyone else to say it out loud, it would make it too real, make it true.

   As usual, the Gryffindor common room was a hub of activity. Its mismatching armchairs and couches were all filled with students from every year chatting, playing games and working on homework. Lee Jordon and Ron’s twin brothers Fred and George had a gramophone going in the corner, playing records from wizarding bands whilst they took turns at throwing gobstones. Harry found the din almost welcoming, it drowned out his own painful and muddled thoughts.

   But he mustn’t have looked right, because as they moved across the room several people looked over and frowned. “You alright Harry?” asked Neville as he glanced up from the Muggle Studies homework Dean was helping him with.

   “Fine,” muttered Harry.

   “Bad fish cakes,” said Ron in a loud whisper, rubbing his stomach dramatically. Several other students, who had presumably actually eaten fish cakes for dinner, suddenly looked nervous.

   Ron’s little sister Ginny was sat by the fireplace with a few of her friends, and caught their eye as they came further into the common room. She raised her eyebrows, and Ron must have given her some sign as she motioned for them to come over. Harry didn’t really want to hang around with a bunch of Forth Years, but he couldn’t deny Ginny’s familiar face made him feel a little better.

   “Are you okay?” she asked as they approached.

   “Bad news,” he said emptily as the group made room for them to sit down. He had to admit the warmth of the fire was wonderful on his skin, but after a beat it just reminded him of his last conversation with Sirius. What if he never saw him again?

   His face must have blanched by the reactions he got from those around him.

   “How about we give you some room?” said Ginny hastily, mercifully not probing any further. “We’ve been hogging the fire for ages anyway.”

   The Fourth Years nodded at each other, and agreed to give the trio some peace, before melting off into the throng of the common room.

   “What now?” asked Harry.

   “Now, we plan,” said Hermione, getting out her general notebook and a new quill.

   They must have been giving off an aura, as hardly anybody came over to bother them the whole night. Parvati Patil dragged her friend Lavender Brown over at one point, complaining loudly to Hermione that they needed help with their Ancient Ruins homework, but Hermione managed to convince them they had time to do it tomorrow.

   “Maybe, if Sirius is sentenced by then,” Harry muttered darkly as the two girls walked away miffed.

   “No,” said Hermione defiantly. “I only said that to get them to go away, and we will keep working until Sirius is _freed._ I won’t here talk about anything else.”

   “But we’ve got nothing,” argued Harry, gesticulating at the parchment littered on the table in front of them. “Aside from hoping Sirius gets the chance to transform into his animagus state, which he won’t because they’ll never take their eyes off him, we’re looking at staging a jailbreak. Even _if_ we knew where they were holding him…it’s a jailbreak!”

   “Shh,” hissed Hermione, glancing around the room. But there were hardly any students left now, and the ones remaining had had the good sense to stay away from the fireplace.

   “Who cares,” said Harry. “It’s too late, they’ve already got him. We can’t do any more damage now.”

   Ron rubbed and blinked his eyes. “I still say we can convince Fudge. If my dad can just get us into the Ministry-”

   “He still won’t listen,” countered Harry. “Even if we scream in his face, he doesn’t want to know.”

   “It’s so corrupted,” growled Hermione through her teeth. “It’s not a judicial system at all.”

   Ron drummed his fingers on his knee. “Maybe Dumbledore’s heard something,” he said, looking at the window nearest them, as if hoping to see Fawkes perched outside with a note. But there was only the rain that had set in about an hour ago, pelting against the window. As they looked, a fork of lightning pierced the black sky, and the thunder wasn’t far behind it. “Maybe we should send him a message to ask?” suggested Ron.

   “Dumbledore will contact us as soon as he knows anything,” said Hermione, looking down over her notes again. “I just wish we knew _how_ they found him.”

   Harry closed his eyes, and couldn’t help but feel she was getting at him. “It was my _letter,”_ he snarled, pushing himself to his feet and running his hands through his hair. “It’s my FAULT.”

   The couple of Gryffindors that were left jerked their heads up. He hadn’t meant to shout, it had just leapt from his mouth in frustration. But on the upside those students seemed to decide that it was time for bed and vacated the common room pretty sharpish.

   “Stop saying it’s your fault,” insisted Hermione. “You’ve sent dozens of letters before now, it’s more likely that wizard noticed Sirius was breaking into his house, I _told_ him he shouldn’t have gone back more than once.”

   “So it’s Sirius’ fault now?” Harry lashed out, but he instantly regretted it. “I’m sorry,” he said hastily, leaning heavily on the back of the armchair he’d been sitting on. “I’m sorry, I know you’re just trying to help. I’ve just never felt this helpless. He’s the only family I have, what if we can’t do anything to stop the Ministry bringing in the Dementors?”

   “You can’t think like that mate,” said Ron.

   But Harry couldn’t help it.

   He sighed. “I think I’m going to go out for a bit,” he said, squeezing the upholstery of the chair. “I just need to…think.”

   “But it’s after-” started Hermione, glancing at her watch. But she stopped herself before she could finish, and looked up at Harry with sincerity. “Just be careful, okay?”

   “Yeah,” said Ron, stifling a yawn and picking up a book on wizarding law. “We’ll keep working.”

   What little of Harry’s insides weren’t consumed by worry and anger for his godfather filled up with gratitude for his friends’ unwavering dedication. “Thanks,” he said tiredly. “I won’t be long, I’ll see you in a bit.”

   He just needed some different air, to stretch his legs out from where they’d been huddled around the table for so long. A walk would do him good.

 

***

 

   The Fat Lady gave out a squeak of protest as Harry pushed her portrait open a little harder than he should have, banging her all the way out into the wall. “Sorry,” he called out, but didn’t stop to hang around as she swung shut again. He didn’t want her to see his face and report him for being out.

   Maybe he should have gone and got his invisibility cloak? But as he moved further into the corridor his stiff legs already felt fresher, and he decided to risk it. Partly because he was worried about being caught and forced back inside, and partly because it felt so good to move, Harry started to run. He was so tired and wrought and furious, the sensation of his feet pounding on the stone floor felt good.

   If only he’d not been so stupid! he raged internally. It was just a dream, it hadn’t even been about Voldemort, he shouldn’t have written that note! What if that’s what had tipped off the Ministry, what if that’s what had lead them right to Sirius?

   Or what if Hermione was right, what if the three of them had insisted on Sirius finding a new house each time they wanted to talk? But this one was a good distance from the cave, its owner always out, its dog friendly and unbothered by Padfoot’s visits. After so long on the run, Harry had forgiven Sirius’ need for a little convenience. Had that been his downfall?

   “No!” cried Harry out loud, smacking the wall hard with the flat of his palm, and slowing gradually to a walk. Those things were not the problem, the problem was having a Minister of Magic too concerned with holding onto his fragile popularity ratings rather than fair justice. Harry screwed up his fists into balls, digging his nails into his already stinging palm. His anger was raw like a nerve, fuelled by his inability to help his godfather, to even be allowed to see him. Cornelius Fudge was a coward and an idiot, but it was his word that was final, it would be him that would seal Sirius’ fate.

   Harry’s anger flared again, and he struck out with both hands, slamming against the locked classroom door he happened to be passing. But as he rebounded, Harry stopped, and looked at where he was.

   He was back where he’d been this lunch hour, the old History of Magic classroom. He stared, then pulled out his wand and unlocked the door, walking inside before he’d had time to reconsider.

   If the room had been dark before it was almost pitch black now. The moon was mostly hidden by the storm clouds blowing around outside, so Harry lit the lamps that probably hadn’t been used in years, and let the door clunk shut behind him.

   He looked in the direction of the fireplace, hidden in shadow under the stacked up tables and chairs. Harry ground his teeth, and before he knew what he was doing his hands were wrapping around the nearest chair, and he was flinging it with all his might against the opposite wall.

   _“ARGH!”_ he bellowed animalistically, breathing deep and fast. Why wouldn’t the Ministry just _listen?_ Didn’t they care they were going to sentence an innocent man to death? Harry grabbed another pair of chair legs and swung it around, slamming it down and across the floor. He didn’t care he was making a racket, let them come and put him in detention, he doubted he could be any less bothered.

   “You hear me!” yelled Harry upwards, daring the whole school to come and drag him away. “I don’t CARE!”

   This room, this room that his feet had taken him too automatically, it was full to the brim with the death of his family. And suddenly he wanted to destroy it. He pulled his wand back out and turned over the bottom-most table to his left, upending the one on top as well as all the chairs. He levitated them all, something guttural escaping from his throat, and flung them left right, up down. For every bit of wood that splintered he thought of never seeing Sirius again, he thought of all the horrible visions he’d had in Remus’ lessons here. _“Not Harry,”_ he’d heard his mother saying. _“Please no, take me, kill me instead-”_

   The furniture was looking more and more like kindling, and Harry let what was left of if drop with a roar, scattering it across the floor. Barty Crouch had imprisoned Sirius to try and cover up his own son’s crimes, and Harry cursed his name as he picked up another chair, crashing into the blackboard.

   “YOU’RE ALL LIARS!” he yelled, tears blurring his eyes. And yet they called _him_ a liar, for saying Voldemort had returned, accused _him_ of having a hand in Cedric’s death. While people like the _Malfoys_ walked free, pretending they were upstanding, better, just because they were _pureblood._ It was all _lies!_

   He was sweating and panting but his rage was boiling, fuelling him like gas to a flame. Another table tipped, and the fireplace came closer into view. Sirius had never lied, only when he thought it would save the Potters’ lives, only when it had mattered the most…

   The room was a swirl of wood shavings and dust from the chalk board, and the ground seemed to be rumbling under Harry’s feet. He levitated the last table to cover the mantel as the thunder and lightning from before broke loose again in the sky.

   _“Wormtail,”_ bellowed Harry, stars dancing in front of his eyes. “All his fault, all his…” He crashed the desk down, knocking the corner off but there was still plenty left to smash.   “FAULT!” If he had never betrayed them, if Sirius had stayed their Secret Keeper instead of trusting Pettigrew, Harry would still have his family, _all_ his family.

   His father’s last words resonated in his ears as the desk crashed down again and again. _“Lily, take Harry and go! It’s him!”_

   “Not fair,” panted Harry, his arm aching from pounding the desk into smithereens. “Not _fair!”_

_“Not Harry! Not Harry! Please - I’ll do anything-”_

   It should have been Wormtail in prison, all these years. It should be _his_ life they were taking away.

   Harry felt like the world was spinning. “It’s not _fair!”_ he cried again.

   _“I’ll do anything!”_

   _“IT’S NOT FAIR!”_

   The stained glass window at the end of the classroom shattered, and Harry was knocked clean off his feet. He screamed as glass sprayed the room, and the wind and rain tore inside, sweeping up the debris, whipping it into a frenzied tornado around Harry as he flung up his arms to protect himself. The thunder shook the very foundations of the school, lightning brightening up the night like it was day.

   He lost sense of everything, like he was being pulled off the ground, darkness consuming him as the noise became overwhelming.

   And then quite suddenly, everything was black.

 

***

 

   Slowly, reality came back to Harry. As consciousness crept through the darkness, he started reaching out with his senses. His body was telling him he was lying down, somewhere soft, like a bed. But something in his memory told him that wasn’t right, that he expected to be in pain, to be cold and alone.

   But he could hear the murmuring of a voice, a man; the words were unintelligible, and the speaker unknown, but Harry could tell he wasn’t by himself.

   His mouth tasted stale and his head was pounding like a herd of Quintapeds were trampling through it. The voice was still muttering, and Harry wanted to open his eyes, but they felt like they were glued shut. He began fidgeting, kicking at the bed sheet he could definitely feel on top of him now, and rubbed at his face with his hands.

   “Oh Harry,” said the man as he managed to peel his eyelids open a little. “How in the many worlds did this happen?”

   Harry blinked. His glasses had been removed, so his vision was blurry anyway without the aid of the confusion. But there, crisp as fresh ink, was the man, the one that had been talking. He was quite tall, blond, and flipping through pages in beige coloured files. Harry could tell he was in a darkened room, a bedroom in a house he guessed, but he couldn’t see any detail apart from the man.

   “Jia is going to have my job for this,” he said ruefully.

   Harry tried to talk, but his throat refused to make any sound, and his eyes were so heavy he could barely keep them open any more than a second, blinking slowly as he tried to get a grip on his surroundings.

   The man looked up and smiled at Harry as he stirred. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll get home in no time.” He checked over some of his notes as Harry screwed up his face. “There might be a spell or something…I don’t know, you chaps seem to have a spell for everything.” He was extremely well spoken, but his clothes were somewhat miss-matched and his jeans were even ripped. The image jarred with the sound a little.

   “Where am I?” Harry croaked.

   The man looked back up in surprise, eyed Harry suspiciously, then looked over his shoulder. There was no other movement in the room, from what Harry could tell between blinks, suggesting they were alone, and the man apparently came to the same conclusion as he shrugged and carried on writing in his file with a blue ball point pen.

   Who was he? Harry was still struggling trying to remember what had happened, where he’d been, how he got in the bed? A spark of anger flared in him, but he didn’t know why, and he was succumbing to sleep again, drifting back into the darkness.

   Was he dreaming?

 

***

 

   He woke again, still bleary, but this time his limbs responded when he tried to move them, and his eyes blinked against sunlight. He grunted and flailed.

   “Harry?” said a female voice. Where was he, had he been here before? He was lying in a bed, but without his glasses he couldn’t tell. His head was aching and his mouth was dry. Had he been talking to someone? Had there been a window, did it break?

   “Harry?” said the voice again. Whoever she was, she was concerned, and Harry felt her take his hand.

   “Hermione?” he mumbled, scrunching his eyes and trying to get rid of the sticky feeling on his lashes.

   “Harry are you okay, can you hear me?” He didn’t know the voice, but now her hands were taking his pulse, touching his forehead. Maybe she was a nurse?

   He remembered defending himself, had he been attacked? Why was there a lingering sense of anger gnawing at his stomach?

   Finally, Harry was able to force his eyes to stay open. He could tell from the blurred shapes that the woman or girl was sat on the bed beside him, and as she leaned over as swathe of red hair swung over her shoulder.

   “Ginny?” Harry tried again. Why did her voice sound different?

   “Who?”

   As disorientated as he was, Harry was starting to get the feeling something was very wrong, and fear was seeping into his gut. This didn’t look like Hogwarts, or Privet Drive; where was he?

   “Glasses?” he managed to utter.

   “Oh, of course,” said the woman, and reached over to a bedside table to his left, and placed a pair of glasses into his hands. They didn’t feel familiar, but Harry slipped them on anyway.

   What he saw as his vision came swimming back into view made his heart still. He had good reason to believe in the afterlife, being surrounded by hundred-year-old ghosts everyday at school, but she didn’t look like a ghost, she was solid, she was real.

   He stared, and the woman looked concerned. “Harry, are you alright?” she said.

   He struggled to find any words, his whole body had seized up in shock. But after a few moments had passed he was able to swallow, able to think.

   And so he said the first and only word that came into his head.

   _“Mum?”_

 

***

 

   It was a trick. It had to be, some sort of devious ploy dreamed up Voldemort.   Harry scrambled backwards up the bed he’d woken up in, panic and horror surging through him. The woman who looked like his mother regarded him in shock.

   “Who the HELL are you!” he cried, eyes darting wildly to try and spy his wand, but it was nowhere to be seen in this foreign bedroom.  

   “Harry,” exclaimed the woman, reaching out to him. It was like they’d taken the images he knew so well from his photo album of Lily Potter in her teens and twenties, and added fifteen years. “Calm down, it’s okay!”

   But Harry recoiled, tumbling out of the bed and darting up against the wall under the window. “Who are you?” Harry demanded again. “Where am I?”

   The woman, who he refused to think of as his mother, had jumped to her feet and looked stricken. She pulled out a wand, and conjured a patronus in the shape of a doe. “Get James,” she told it, her voice breathy and tight. “I think something’s really wrong with Harry, I think he may have been compromised.”

   The doe nodded and spun on its heels, slipping through the solid wall like a ghost.

   Harry’s eyes flicked between the woman and where the patronus had vanished. “J-James?” he repeated. “Get James?” He managed to fumble to his feet, his back to the wall, the coldness from the window pane hitting his clothes and skin. “Oh, that’s, that’s just sick!” He couldn’t focus on anything, and his right hand kept flexing and twitching, reaching for the wand that wasn’t there. Someone had put him in pyjamas, so there were no pockets to even search.

   Suddenly he stopped, his attention finally caught on something for more than a second. The pyjamas – they fitted. They had not belonged to Dudley, or anyone else as far as he could see. They really fitted him, and they had little golden snitches on. This detail was so bizarre he found it holding his gaze as the woman moved closer to him.

   “Harry,” she said, holding up her hands. His attention refocused and he jerked his head back up to look at her, flinching away from her reach. “It’s me, it’s mum, you’re home.”

   “Get away from me!” warned Harry, and without his wand did the only thing he could think of, and raised his fists. She looked at him dubiously.

   “You’re going to hit me?” she asked wryly.

   She looked like the woman Harry had always imagined his mother to be, and yet not. Her hair had a few streaks of grey, her face delicate crinkles around the eyes. Her frame was a little broader and she looked tired. Magical photos moved, so he felt he could say with some confidence that all these things were built upon something familiar. But her voice…the only time he’d heard her speak was in the echoes of her death, when the Dementors had got too near to him. Was this what Lily Potter sounded like?

   He shook himself, and looked at his fists. He wasn’t sure he really wanted to hit her, but his brain was buzzing. What was this, what was he seeing? Could he trust his own eyes?

   “Where’s my wand?” he shouted, trying to regain some control over the situation. “My clothes? Where am I?”

   The woman didn’t budge, and they remained in their stand off for a moment as she bit her lip and frowned intensely at him.

   “Harry,” she asked slowly. “What do you remember?”

   Harry could feel his heart thumping at a million miles an hour. “Uh,” he said, blinking and trying to get a hold of his senses. What _did_ he remember? “I was sleeping, someone was talking to me.” Was that true though? He wasn’t entirely sure. Before that, where had he been before? Why was it so hard to remember?

   “I’ve been here all night,” said the woman. “You were talking in your sleep. Do you remember coming home, or passing out?”

   Harry rubbed his eyes and his temples, memories trickling through the fog in his brain. “I was at school,” he said confidently; that was unsurprising enough, he spent most of his time at Hogwarts. But the woman who looked like Lily Potter blanched.

   “You were dreaming about school?” she said, but Harry was already shaking his head. He could feel it coming back to him.

   “I had a dream, a bad one, I was talking to Sirius but then they…”

   It hit him like a wave crashing down from high above. Sirius, the Ministry, Fudge. They’d found him, they were going to perform a Dementor’s Kiss…the classroom. He’d been in the old History classroom, he’d been so angry.

   “You haven’t seen Sirius in days,” said the woman, but Harry wasn’t really listening.

   “He’s in trouble,” he said, more to himself, saying it out loud to try and make sense of the situation. “They have him, I have to help.” It was day now, but it had been night when he’d left the Gryffindor common room. How many hours had he wasted in this place? Where were Ron and Hermione, had they been able to do anything?

   “Who?” cut in the woman, crossing the distance between them so fast Harry didn’t get a chance to react as she grabbed his shoulders. “Who has Sirius?”

   He pushed her off. “The Ministry!” he cried angrily. “What is this, some trick of theirs to get me to back off?”

   The woman deflated visibly. “The Ministry?” said the woman. “Harry, what are you talking about?”

But he wasn’t about to be distracted. “You,” he said, shaking his finger aggressively in her face. “What are you, some sort of spell, a hallucination?” He scanned his brain, trying to think of any spell that would make him see what he was seeing. A pensive could have shown him memories, but they wouldn’t be able to interact with him, and this Lily wouldn’t look older. She’d look like the photos he had in his album from Hagrid.

   The woman considered him, worry clear on her face, which just confused Harry further. “Harry,” she said carefully. “Who do you think I am?”

   “Dead!” he shouted. He was trapped in the corner of the room, the bed to his left, the wall to his right and the woman in front of him. So in one swift move he stepped onto the mattress and made for the more open portion of the bedroom. “You’re dead and this is some sort of sick joke thought up by Cornelius Fudge! Or,” he said, freezing as the thought struck him, only half noticing the woman as she skirted round the bed, stopping in between him and the door. “Maybe not. Maybe this is Voldem-”

   The woman launched herself at Harry so fast he barely saw her move. She slapped her hand over Harry’s mouth and seized a chunk of his hair. “Have you taken leave of your _senses!”_ she hissed, fear alive in her wide eyes. “Were you actually going to say his _name?”_

Harry blinked, the nape of his neck stinging where she’d yanked his hair. But the shock of her ferocity had temporarily stunned him, and he just looked back at her, his eyes probably just as wide.

   What was going on here? Why couldn’t he say Voldemort’s name? Who _was_ this woman? Was she some agent from the Ministry, using Polyjuice potion, or was he asleep? Was this some really vivid dream, haunting him after the horror of losing Sirius back to Azkaban?

   The woman slowly let go of him and took a step backwards, and they regarded each other silently for a while. Harry didn’t know what to do. Was this real? It felt real?

   “Who are you?” he asked, not able to trust his eyes for one second.

   The woman shook her head and covered her mouth. “Oh,” she said thickly, tears springing in her eyes. “Did someone Obliterate you?”

   Harry looked at her. “I don’t think so,” he said, stupidly. That didn’t make any sense. He had plenty of memories, he reasoned with himself. Just not with her in them.

   It was at that moment the base dropped out of his stomach. What if his memories weren’t right? He thought of Hermione’s time-turner – was it possible something had happened, had the timeline changed? Was that something that could be done?

   Was this real?

   He stumbled sideways and groped for the bed post, falling back onto the bed. “Is this real?” he said out loud. “Are you my mum?”

   Lily’s face crumpled. “Of course,” she said, taking a fretful step forward, but she seemed hesitant to touch him again, so she just perched on the edge of his mattress. “Of course I am,” she said.

   Was he mad? He couldn’t think of a single instance he’d heard about where someone had meddled with the timeline drastically. But then, he reasoned, the time-turners were locked up in the Ministry, under strict supervision. If anything had happened like that, they would be sure to keep it under wraps.

   Maybe, he thought, his mind racing with possibilities. Maybe they’d taken Sirius to the Ministry? Maybe he had escaped their custody, gotten into wherever they kept the time-turners and gone back to change the past?

   Harry looked back up at the woman. At Lily. “You’re my mum,” he said slowly. “And this…This is our house?”

   She sighed, a little hint of relief, and placed her hand on her chest. “Yes,” she said, inching closer to him along the duvet. “Yes that’s right. I think maybe something happened on your way home from Terry’s last night.” Her voice turned stern. “This is why we set curfews,” she said. “And why you shouldn’t get blind drunk.”

   Harry blinked at her. Terry? The only Terry he knew was Terry Boot, but they weren’t exactly friends, they’d hardly had any lessons together the past four years.

   A thought hit him that made his guts twist back up again. If Sirius or someone had changed the timeline, how would he remember it? Wouldn’t he just have new memories? And how would that explain the window exploding like it did? It was like the more he thought about what was going on, the more he found out, the more confused he got.

   “I was at Terry Boot’s?” he asked, probing. Maybe he just hadn’t got enough information yet for things to start making sense. If he retraced his steps, perhaps something would fall into place?

   “You don’t remember at all?” asked the woman. It was hard not to think of her as Lily, as his mum. He shook his head. “Um,” she said, thrown. “Yes, you were having dinner there. Though I’m starting to think his parents weren’t home at all, and ‘dinner’ consisted of little more than fire whiskey.”

   She raised her eyebrow and placed her hand back on his forehead. He didn’t protest, but the familiarity was strange. “I was drunk?” He’d never been drunk in his life as far as he knew.

   But he never got his answer, because at that moment the door to the bedroom burst open, making both him and Lily jump.

   “Oh good,” breathed Lily, raising to her feet. “I’m not sure if he’s just really hungover, or if something actually happened on his way home last night.” She shook her head. “He seemed fine though, until he passed out.”

   Harry sort of heard her words, logging them to add to the pieces he was accumulating in the vain attempt to explain what was going on. But his eyes were fixed on the man who had just come through the door.

   It was his dad.

 

***

 

   “Harry,” said the man who could have been James Potter in his late thirties. “Are you okay? You gave us a real fright.”

   He swept over to Lily’s side, peering over his glasses at Harry who was still sagged on the bed, pillows bunched up behind him. He couldn’t think of anything to say, he just goggled at the people who looked like his parents standing in front of him.

   They both looked so… _normal._ Both in jeans, James still with a travelling cloak on, Lily with chipped green nail varnish and striped, well worn slippers on her feet. James put his arm around the woman that was supposedly his wife, and together they wore looks of concern.

   “I don’t know what’s going on,” said Harry, truthfully.

   Lily turned to James. “I want to call a Healer,” she said firmly. “I think he may have been muddled, a Confundus Charm or something.”

   James came closer and sat in front of Harry, who couldn’t help but curl his legs away, like a scared animal shying away from a curious onlooker.   He could tell his breathing was ragged but he couldn’t seem to slow it down. “Are you okay mate?” the man asked sympathetically.

   No, was the simple answer to that. Someone, or more than one someone, was tormenting him with this make-believe world. But _why?_ He’d been so preoccupied with the how, he hadn’t until this moment stopped to consider why someone would do this to him? For fun? To watch him suffer? Harry was sure Voldemort would enjoy anything that upset him. But surely his real life was upsetting enough, what with his parents actually being dead and now Sirius under threat of having his soul sucked from him for a crime he didn’t commit. Why would someone give him this fiction?

   “I don’t know,” he said after a few moments passed. “I feel okay, bit of a headache. Things are just a bit hazy.”

   James looked up at Lily. “He asked me who I was, where we were, then told me I was dead,” she said, rather deadpan and eyes locked on Harry.

   James turned back to Harry with real concern. “Memory loss?” he said, reaching to touch Harry’s face.

   But that was too much for Harry. He jerked back, scuttling off the bed, back into the corner he’d barricaded himself into before. “Don’t touch me,” he said, almost fearful.

   James’ face didn’t show much emotion, but he stayed looking at Harry for a good while.   “Healer Jaisun,” he said, before standing and turning to Lily. It was like Harry was no longer in the room. “He was the Healer we got when Sarah came down with Spattergroit. He’ll be discreet.”

   Harry watched them defensively as they moved to face him. “Is that okay Harry,” said Lily in a calm tone, like she was dealing with someone unstable. “If the Healer comes and takes a look at you?”

   Harry didn’t know what else to say. So he nodded. “Okay,” he said. Who knew? Maybe this Healer would be able to actually give him some answers.

   James took Lily’s hand. “I think you should get some rest,” he suggested as they backed up towards the door. “Sleep might clear things up a bit for you.”

   Harry doubted that very much, unless this was all some sort of bad dream, but he nodded again anyway, and they slipped out and closed the door.

   He let go a heavy breath, stunned. All those years, fantasising about his mum and dad, what they would be like. Until Hagrid was kind enough to contact their school friends and get all those old photos, Harry hadn’t even been sure what they’d really looked like. He closed his eyelids and rested his fingers on them. The woman’s eyes had been green.

   _“You look just like your dad,”_ people had always told him. _“Except for your eyes. You have your mother’s eyes.”_ They’d been right.

   Could they be people under the influence of Polyjuice potion? When he and Ron had used it back in their Second Year, to take the form of Crabbe and Goyle, the effects had only lasted an hour, and they had kept their own voices which had almost given them away. But again, the only time he had heard his parents talk was in the ghostly echoes he’d experienced at the hands on the Dementors, and he couldn’t say for sure whether they matched. Where would anyone have even gotten some of their hair, or any other part of their body? They’d been dead for so long.

   He thought again about what the point would be of someone doing this to him, it just didn’t make sense. It didn’t have to make sense though to scramble his guts up like it had. He felt physically sick, his emotions raw and unfamiliar. How were you supposed to react to meeting the family you thought had been dead your whole life?

   He sighed, and opened his eyes again, trying to find some purchase of calm. He was never going to get anywhere unless he worked out what was going on.

   He looked around the bedroom. The was a poster for the Weird Sisters in between the wardrobe and the door, and the band members were thrashing their instruments soundlessly. Likewise, several members of the Appleby Arrows Quidditch team were flying through pictures and banners that hung from the walls, waving and smiling and occasionally dodging bludgers. A Firebolt that looked much like his own broom was propped up against a desk covered with parchment and odd trinkets like sea shells and shot glasses engraved with holiday destinations.

   A handful of trophies stood on the window sill, different sizes and shapes, but they all seemed to be for a local Quidditch team called the Devonshire Dynamos. There were socks littering the floor as well as magazines – Muggle as well as Wizarding – and piled up on the desk were text books that Harry mostly recognised from school.

   There was something comforting about the room, as alien as it was. He stood and flipped open the cover of the nearest book. On the inside was written _‘This belongs to Harry Potter’_ in his own handwriting, but he had never even seen this particular book before. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but the strange inscription made him feel queasy.

   Was this _his_ bedroom? But how could it be? He’d never seen it before in his life, and all his worldly positions could fit into his school trunk. These simply weren’t his things. He let the book fall shut with a snap, and rubbed his face hard with his fingertips.

   And then he froze.

Something was wrong, something didn’t feel right. He touched his skin again, testing it. Why did his forehead feel strange, looser or finer or some word he couldn’t think of. Anxiety was welling up in him, and he looked purposefully around for a mirror. There was none, but he knew some of the wardrobes in the Weasley’s house had them on the inside of the door, so he strode over to the wardrobe in the corner and yanked it open on both sides.

There indeed was a mirror, on the right, and Harry looked at himself for the first time since waking up in the strange room. He was wearing nothing but the patterned pyjamas, which he’d already established, so he just focused on his face, his forehead. Hurriedly, he swept his fringe away, then stood agog at what he saw.

   Same pale skin, same black hair, same skinny frame.

   But there was no scar.

   He ran his fingers over where the jagged lightning bolt should have been, the mark that had pretty much defined his whole life. But there was nothing, not even a blemish. _How_ could that be possible?

   He could almost believe that someone might go to the trouble of kidnapping him, recreating older versions of his parents in whatever way, but his scar? There was absolutely no way to remove it. It was magical in origin, Dumbledore had explained it to him, and therefore not even wizard methods could take it away.   He jabbed it again, mouth slack as he tried to wrap his mind around the fact his most important physical feature had somehow disappeared.

   There was a sharp knock at the door, and Harry snapped from his frenzied thoughts to stare at the back of it. “Oi,” said an unfamiliar voice. “You finished faking it yet?”

   Harry wasn’t sure what to do. “Erm…” he said, not very eloquently, undecided whether or not to go to the door. It didn’t sound like his mum, it sounded like a girl?

   The decision was made for him after a beat when the door bashed open yet again. But on the other side this time was a small girl, perhaps eleven or twelve years old, with jet black hair pulled back into a ponytail and ice blue eyes.

   Harry stared. Dumfounded.

   The girl had her hands on her hips and her eyebrow raised, but upon Harry’s no doubt stricken face she softened and dropped her arms. “Harry are you alright?” she asked, letting the door swing to behind her. “Dad said we had to come home because mum was flipping out? Are you really ill?”

   Harry felt like he’d been punched in the gut, such was the shock. _Mum? Dad?_

   “Who are you?” he asked without really considering it, and the girl’s eyes flew open.

   “Oh my God,” she said, stepping closer to Harry. “Have you got _amnesia?_ I read about that, in a book, have you lost your memories?” She looked torn between horror and fascination. “Can you get them _back?”_

   He took her in. The hair was the same shade as his, but it was the cheekbones, the curve of her nose. She was a dead spit for the red-headed woman he had woken up to.

   Was this supposed to be his sister?

   The concept blew his mind. A little sister? Why would someone invent that?

   The man, James, had mentioned a girl’s name when he was talking about getting a Healer. “Sarah?” he tried.

   She blinked. “Yes?”

   “You’re my sister?”

   She let her mouth fall open. “Uh, for almost thirteen years now, yeah.”

   Harry shook his head. This was the most unbelievable part of his day by far, and that was saying something. A _sister?_ He turned and moved back to the bed, sinking into the mattress again and staring at the floor.

   “Wow,” said Sarah. “You really aren’t right are you?” She came and sat beside him, swinging her legs were they didn’t quite reach the floor.

   “No,” said Harry. Understatement.

   “Mum said you came home late last night,” said the girl called Sarah. Her tone was quiet and she was chewing on her lip. “She said you were drunk and jabbering away like an idiot, so she made you drink water and eat leftover pasta, and then you just…” She stopped swinging her feet. “Went a bit funny, and fell asleep, like you fainted or something.”

   She snuck a glance at Harry with her blue eyes. She wasn’t wearing glasses, but he could see how she could be his sister, Lily and James’ second child. Were there anymore?

   “Did she say anything else?” he asked instead. Because he most definitely had not been out drinking with Terry Boot of all people, and he hadn’t eaten since yesterday lunchtime. Was whoever was doing this trying to trick him into doubting his own memories? It was starting to work if they were.

   Sarah shrugged. “She was worried because you wouldn’t wake up. She got dad to put you in here and then she wouldn’t leave. I think she slept on the floor.” Sarah began swinging her feet again. “I just told them you were making a big fuss,” she told him brashly, but her demeanour dropped again immediately. “I guess I was wrong?”

   Harry was mesmerised by her. Having been saddled with Dudley Dursley as a cousin, he’d always considered Hermione and the Weasleys to be his siblings. But to have someone of his own flesh and blood, sitting right there…

   He was getting carried away. He was almost certain this couldn’t be ‘real’, it just wasn’t possible. His parents were dead and he had no sister.

   “I don’t know what’s happening,” said Harry yet again. It was the only truthful thing he knew to say.

   “Do you really have amnesia?” Sarah asked.

   He considered. “Maybe,” he said evasively.

   Sarah raised her eyebrow. “How can you ‘maybe’ have amnesia?” she demanded. “You either do or you don’t.”

   Harry looked back at her. She had a point. “Alright,” he sighed. Unlike his would-be-parents, he wasn’t so scared of this possible sister. Perhaps he could voice some thoughts with her? “I don’t think I’m missing memories,” he said, trying to chose the right words. “I think I have _different_ ones.”

   Sarah frowned dubiously at him. “Like what?”

   “Like,” he said slowly. “Last night, before I passed out. I wasn’t here.” Because here is impossible, he added to himself. “I was at school, with Ron and Hermione, and then I left the Gryffindor Tower and I was in an old classroom. I, um, got a bit mad.” No need to go into why, he figured. “There was a crazy storm, and the window broke. It was like being in a tornado, with flashing lights and then…nothing. It just went dark.”

   Sarah was staring at him, blankly. It was a mirror image of the stare Lily had given him when she’d told James he’d thought she was dead. “You were dreaming,” she said simply.

   Harry was taken aback by her conviction. “No,” he said firmly. “I wasn’t.”

   “How do you know?” countered Sarah. “Sometimes when you’re dreaming you think you’re awake.”

   “But,” replied Harry. “You then realise you weren’t when you wake up. I’m not asleep now, am I?”

   Sarah rolled her eyes at him. “Duh,” she said. “No, of course not. But you can’t have been at school, unless you meant the Muggle one down in the village?”

   Why would he mean a Muggle school? “No, Hogwarts,” he said. Shouldn’t that have been obvious?

   “But Hogwarts is closed?” said Sarah, genuine confusion on her face. “So you can’t have been there. It must have been a dream.”

   Harry blinked. “Closed?” She nodded. “When?”

   “Um…” She counted it out on her fingers, thinking. “Three years ago.”

   “Why?”

   “Blimey Harry, you really have been Obliterated,” said Sarah aghast.

   He shook his head. “I’m sure it’ll come back to be,” he said dismissively. “What happened at the school, tell me? It might jog my memory.” He didn’t care that this might all be a fabrication, he wanted to know what had happened to his home.

   “Um,” said Sarah, wringing her hands and looking a little fretful. “You-Know-Who attacked it, with the Death Eaters, they let out the big snake, loads of people died.”

   Now it was Harry’s turn to stare. “You-Know-Who?” he said, using Voldemort’s nick-name rather than his real one after Lily’s extreme reaction earlier. “So he has come back, he’s alive?” Sarah looked horrified and he held up his hands. “I know I should know,” he said. “Just remind me, please?”

   Sarah snapped her mouth closed. “Yeah, of course he’s alive, but he never went anywhere. And Dumbledore almost killed them both getting him to leave the school.” She shrugged. “That’s what dad said anyway.”

   Harry chewed over that. “People,” he said slowly. “Never thought he was dead before?”

   Sarah snorted. “If only,” she said scornfully. “He’s been a bit quieter since then, but he’s not dead, no way.” She swallowed. “I try not to think about it, mum doesn’t like me to talk about it. Like that’ll somehow mean people aren’t dying and disappearing.” She rolled her eyes, but her voice was understandably still a little tight with fear.

   Harry was pretty horrified himself. He had no scar, and Voldemort had never vanished like he should have. Worse, he was powerful enough to the point he’d attacked Hogwarts and let the Basilisk out.

   “So,” he prodded her. “You-Know-Who attacked the school, why?” He felt sick. “Was he going after the Muggle-borns?”

   Sarah gave him a dubious look, but this time just accepted his ignorance and answered. “They stopped the Muggle-born kids going to Hogwarts ages ago. Mum says they probably don’t even know they’re magical.” She took a deep breath and fixed him with a stare. “They killed a lot of students, whatever the reason.”

   “Like who?” The part of Harry’s brain that kept shouting that this wasn’t real, that he didn’t need to worry about it was getting smaller and smaller.

   “You told me about Neville,” said Sarah, sitting on her hands and bopping slighting on them. He could tell she was anxious talking about this, and he felt bad, but hearing Neville’s name made him flinch.

   “Neville Longbottom?” he said, and she nodded. “Neville was...he died?” Again, she nodded, and Harry couldn’t help but lean back, his chest tightening. Neville was dead.

   “You managed to hide,” she said. “Or that’s what you said.”

   Hide? thought Harry. That didn’t sound like him. He shook it off.

“What about Ron, Hermione?” he asked, but then he corrected himself. “No wait, no Muggle-borns right? At the school?”

   “Not for years,” said Sarah. She pulled at her ponytail. “Do you mean Ron Weasley?”

   “Yes,” said Harry eagerly, but the sad look on her face quashed his enthusiasm.

   “I remember them,” said Sarah, twisting her hair around her finger. “Redheads?”

   Harry nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Were they okay, did they get hurt at the school attack? Ron, the twins?”

   Sarah let her hair fall, and looked at him impatiently. “You really don’t know? Are you pulling my leg?”

   Harry didn’t like her tone. “Tell me,” he said.

   “They were got,” she said coldly. “Years ago, I barely remember it. They found the Dark Mark over their house. I’m not supposed to know that, but I do. Mum was so gutted.” She pulled at Harry’s duvet cover, and he tried to process what she was saying.

   He was supposed to believe he was in a world where his parents were alive, and so was Voldemort, but the Weasleys were dead? All of them?

   “This is a nightmare,” said Harry.

   “I’m sorry,” said Sarah.

   Harry scoffed. “It’s not your fault, I’m sure.” But he couldn’t say he wasn’t perplexed. What kind of scam was this, how complex was it going to get?

   The door swung open again, and Harry wondered if anyone around here had any real concept of personal space. It was Lily, or the woman that looked like her at any rate, and she looked pleased until she spotted Sarah. “Uh,” she said. “I thought you were putting your broom away and tending to the owls?” she said with a raise of an eyebrow.

   Sarah’s mouth popped open slightly, before she clicked it back. “I was just checking if Harry wanted to help, seeing as he’s awake and no one bothered to tell me.”

   “That’s enough from you,” said Lily, shooing her off the bed, but Sarah stood her ground, waiting for Harry, or so it seemed. Lily rolled her eyes, just like Sarah had.

“Okay, you can take him outside for a moment, the air might do him good.” She hooked a dressing gown off the end of the bed and held it out for Harry to take. “I’ve got in touch with Dr Jaisun,” she told him as he pulled the robe on. “He’ll be here within the hour.”

“Okay,” said Harry evenly as she held out a pair of grey, fluffy slippers for his feet.

   “If you feel light-headed I want you to come straight back in, okay?”

   Harry nodded, and Sarah took that as a decision made. “Come on,” she said, excitedly. “Hedwig just got back from Ireland, she might have a message for you.”

   Harry blinked as she yanked him to his feet. Hedwig?

   “What?”

 

***

 

   Everything was different since he had woken up, everything, even his skin. And yet Sarah was pulling him out of his bedroom, telling him his faithful friend, his owl Hedwig was somewhere waiting for him.

   No, he thought logically. That could just be a coincidence. He’d got the name out of a book after all, it didn’t mean it was the same owl.

   Harry stepped out into a corridor, Sarah still dragging him by his hand. There were a couple of doors leading to other rooms, and staircases at either end. The one on the right led up, but the one up ahead was the one they started walking down. The wall on his left was absolutely covered in framed, animated photographs, but Harry barely got a chance to look at them, such was Sarah’s pace.

   “Look,” she rasped. “They’ve got the Healer coming now, so if you’re faking, or you’re some sort of spy or something, now would be the time to snap out of it.”

   “Hey,” said Harry, snatching his hand out of hers as they reached the landing that lead to what looked like the front door. “I’m not faking anything.”

   Sarah looked him up and down. “Fine,” she said, and lifted a Nimbus 2000 from where it had been discarded by the umbrella stand. “Good, good.” She grabbed a cloak that looked to be about her size from a rack by a mirror next to the door, and flung it over her shoulders, then took hold of a slightly larger one. “It’s cold out there,” she said, chucking it at Harry.

   Harry didn’t protest, and slung it over his own back. His own Hedwig or not, the implication was that this was his owl Sarah was talking about. Why would she have flown to Ireland? he thought as they went under an arch to their right, through a living room and into a good sized kitchen.

   Confidently, Sarah skirted round the large wooden dining table to the back door, pushing it open and walking into the crisp November air. Harry followed, taking in every detail he could about this house that supposedly belonged to the Potter family.

   The place was a bit unkempt, piles of mail and cook books littering the kitchen surfaces, and washing up waiting to be done in the sink. But Harry liked the authenticity of it; his Aunt Petunia’s obsession with having a spotless house had always made it feel even less like home to him, like it was a picture from a magazine rather than somewhere to actually live.

   Welly boots were piled up by the back door as he passed through, but Sarah just stayed in her slippers so he did the same. The garden was nicely kept with colourful flowers spilling out all over the place despite the wintery weather. Neater than the Weasleys, but a mess compared to Aunt Petunia’s – which really wasn’t a hard thing to accomplish when you considered that Aunt Petunia tended to measure the grass with a ruler.

   Poking their heads out of the various forms of plant life were all sorts of little stone ornaments; mischievous gnomes with big hats, gargoyles, toads and griffins. Angels adorned the water feature to Harry’s left, and they winked and waved as he and Sarah walked past.

   Harry stopped and turned round to take a good look at the house. It was even bigger than he’d initially thought, and appeared to be in the middle of nowhere – or at least well back from any town. He could see the Quidditch trophies by his own window shinning in the weak sunshine. Other windowsills contained the backs of photo frames, ornate crockery and fat teddy bears. Through one of the pairs of curtains on the ground floor he could see a gleaming black grand piano, something Harry had never seen in real life.

   This house – was this the house his parents had lived in when he was a baby? Was this the one Voldemort had destroyed? The one Hagrid had plucked him from as a baby, crying and bleeding? Absently, he reached up and rubbed his scarless forehead again. Was he in Godric’s Hollow?

   “You alright?” said Sarah worried. “You’re not going to faint again are you? Should I get mum?” With some effort Harry pulled himself away from that train of thought. He had to deal with the here and now, no dwell on the past. He had to treat what his eyes were seeing as the truth to a certain extent, and just roll with it.

   “Yeah, I’m fine,” he assured her. Her eyes remained wide. “Honestly,” he added. “I might freeze to death but I’m not going to faint.”

   “You really scared us,” she told them as they made their way along the frosty garden path, icy wet blades of grass tickling at Harry’s bare feet encased in the slippers.

   “Um, sorry,” he said. He meant it; he was pretty scared himself.

   Swaying up ahead in the autumn breeze were several gnarly trees. They were covered in various paper creations, lanterns and glittery pictures of fairies, that were spinning cheerfully in the wind. Harry shoved his hands in the pockets of his dressing gown and watched his breath curl from his mouth like cauldron smoke.

   Sarah put her broom in a shed nestled into some evergreen trees; there were a couple of rusty bikes in there as well as the usual gardening tools and a growling old fridge-freezer, presumably generated by magic, not electricity. Sarah then led Harry to a little owlery some way further down the garden path.

   “She’s a bit tired,” Sarah informed Harry. “She only just got back from Galway, but she’ll be well pleased to see you I bet.” She walked under the covered archway where five or six owls of varying sizes and colours were sleeping. Harry wondered again why his owl would have flown to Ireland, but then a familiar hoot reached his ears and the snowy white bird swooped gracefully down onto his shoulder.

   He couldn’t believe it. “It’s good to see you here,” said Harry softly, scratching Hedwig’s head. It was her, the same bird he’d picked out himself in Diagon Alley all those years ago. She nipped his ear affectionately.

   Whatever was going on, here was some small bit of proof that his real life was still present. With all this craziness he was faced with, it would be easy to lose his reality, so he was very glad indeed to have his old friend hop onto his other shoulder and hoot.

   “No message,” said Sarah with a shrug as she filled up the water bowl, crunchy with ice. But Harry didn’t care where she’d been. He was just concerned about where she could go, and what other old friends she could find.

   “Hey girl,” he said, a thought forming in his mind. “I think I’ve got a job for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...what do you think's going to happen? What do you think of Sarah? How do you think Harry's feeling? I'd love to hear what you think!


	3. Sleeping Sickness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There are things call dimensions, it’s like the way we organise how we understand reality.” Hermione Granger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harry's on the hunt for some answers, and there's only one person he can think of to ask...

Chapter Two -

   Sleeping Sickness

 

I awoke only to find my lungs empty,

And through the night, so it seems I'm not breathing.

And now my dreams are nothing like they were meant to be,

And I'm breaking down, I think I'm breaking down.

 

And I'm afraid to sleep because of what haunts me,

Such as living with the uncertainty

That I'll never find the words to say which would completely explain

Just how I'm breaking down

 

Someone come and, someone come and save my life

Maybe I'll sleep when I am dead,

But now it's like the night is taking sides

With all the worries that occupy the back of my mind

Could it be this misery will suffice?

City and Colour

 

   “Okay,” said the Healer in his distinct Wolverhampton accent. “Open your mouth and say ‘ahh’.”

   Harry was sat on the couch in the living room. He’d been ushered into the shower after Lily had called him and Sarah in from the owlery, and was now wearing jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt that fitted him so well it was downright disconcerting. “Ahh,” he said, as the Healer lit up his wand and peered down Harry’s throat.

   “Hmm,” he said. Harry wasn’t sure what he was looking for, and had a sneaking suspicion neither did Healer Jaisun.

   Lily had welcomed him in a little while ago, and described Harry’s symptoms as ‘amnesia-like’ and ‘generally confused’. Harry hadn’t wanted to go into any more detail, as he was worrying he’d already said too much by divulging to Sarah about his real memories at Hogwarts, so he just played dumb. Without much else to go on, the Healer was just assessing him physically, muttering spells and poking him occasionally with his wand.

   Sarah hadn’t said anything though, no matter how strange she’d found his confessions. Perhaps if he’d elaborated and told her their parents were supposed to be dead and she never alive in the first place, she might have felt differently. But that’s why Harry was now keeping his mouth shut. “It’s all a blur,” he kept saying as his family watched on from the other sofa. He felt like a science experiment, but at the same time he didn’t want them to go anywhere. As weary as he was of them, and whatever their true origin was, this was the closest he’d ever been to meeting his family, so he didn’t want to waste a moment out of their company.

   Healer Jaisun was making notes and referring to a large, battered book he had pulled out of his satchel. “I have to say,” he said, chin resting on his knuckles, eyes still scanning the book. “There’s nothing I can see physically wrong with you, aside from a slightly higher amount of transfigural energy.”

   James Potter raised his eyebrows, and shifted Sarah slightly from where she was perched on his lap. “Could that have been caused by Polyjuice potion?” he asked, echoing Harry’s own question about his supposed father.

   But the Healer shook his head. “Not at these levels,” he said. “And there are no traces of the potion.”

   “Something else then?” asked Lily.

   “Honestly,” said Jaisun. “I didn’t mean to alarm you. This is definitely your son, and he is fit and healthy. I can’t detect that any spells were cast on him in the past twenty four hours, other than the usual household stuff.” He slipped his tome back into the bag by his feet and began clicking the clasps shut. “It isn’t unusual, however,” he added, looking up with a slight wry smile. “For unusually high amounts of alcohol to play tricks on the mind. Your mother mentioned you’d had a good time last night Harry?”

   Harry gave a meek shrug, that he hoped conveyed ‘maybe’, rather than ‘I wouldn’t know, I was in school at the other end of the country’. James tutted and gave Harry a reproachful look, as Lily accompanied Healer Jaisun to his feet and then out to the front door.

   “Some rest in familiar surroundings should start to prompt regular brain function,” assured the Healer as Lily opened the door for him. “And some Pepper Up Potion might not go amiss.”

   “Thank you so much,” she told him as he stepped out, and watched until he made it all the way down the driveway so he could apparate away. The second he vanished, the smile dropped and she came storming back into the living room, slamming the door behind her. “Harry James Potter,” she snapped, fixing him with a glare. “You should know better than to get yourself into such a state.”

   “At least,” said James with a sigh. “If all we’re looking at is a bad hangover, that’s not so bad. We were doing the same at his age.”

   “Yes,” argued Lily. “But we didn’t have to deal with Death Eaters watching our every move. _We_ didn’t have targets on our heads, not then!”

   Harry wasn’t sure he could say anything that wouldn’t make things worse, so he stayed quiet, looking between them both. But apparently that wasn’t going to fly with Lily Potter. “Well?” she snapped. “What have you got to say for yourself?”

   Harry’s eyes widened, and it didn’t help that he caught Sarah smirking at him like a Cheshire cat from James’ lap. “I’m really sorry,” he said as sincerely as he could. “I honestly didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

   Lily harrumphed. “Okay,” she said begrudgingly. “Well, I’m glad you’re alright. But I expect you to stay away from the booze, understand?” Harry nodded.

   James bounced Sarah off his lap. “I’m going to contact Terry’s dad, what was his name again?” He looked at Harry, and for a split second he cast around for a possible answer, but Lily came to his rescue.

   “David,” she said absently. Harry suspected she wasn’t all that convinced by the idea that his behaviour had been down to alcohol poisoning, and he couldn’t say he blamed her. She had been the one who’d been with him when he’d woken up. No one else had witness his rantings, he hadn’t told anyone else they should be dead.

   James nodded. “I’ll see how Terry’s doing, maybe you got into something you shouldn’t?” He raised an eyebrow at Harry as he walked off in the direction of the study, or so Harry guessed from his brief exploration of the house.

   He couldn’t lie, he was disappointed. He had been hoping that the Healer might have been able to give him some clue as to where he was, and how he’d got there. He was back to square one, mulling over every detail from the History classroom, the storm, the exploding window.

   “I better do some work,” said Lily, looking at her watch and snapping Harry from his thoughts. “I’ll get dinner on soon, I’ll call for some help in a while.”

   “Great,” Sarah piped up, and grabbed Harry’s hand. “I’ll look after him, make sure he doesn’t sneak any vodka.”

   “Hey,” protested Harry, but she was already pulling him towards the stairs. Lily shook her head patiently and headed through the archway into the kitchen.

   “Do you buy that then?” said Sarah in a conspiratorial tone as she hauled him up the two flights of stairs to her bedroom in the attic. “If you have a nap you’ll remember stuff again.”

   Harry pursed his lips. “No,” he said honestly. “But I don’t want to worry…mum and dad.” It sounded so odd to say out loud, like he was playing make-believe. But what else could he call them? he reasoned.

   He’d not ventured up to this part of the house yet. Sarah barrelled through a door that had a wooden name plaque with her name engraved on it, pushing it open enough so Harry could follow on through before it swung back. He stood in the middle of the floor and took in the room. The walls were soft pink and covered in anything you could think of to decorate with or make a unicorn out of; posters, toys, lamp shades, duvet spread, mugs – even her hairbrush had a horn and a tail. Anything that wasn’t a unicorn was branded with the Holyhead Harpies, and Gwenog Jones winked at Harry from a calendar as Sarah skipped around and shut the door firmly behind them.

   “So you still reckon you were at Hogwarts?” she said, walking over to a tank in the corner of the room with a UV lamp shining softly down onto it. It was filled with rocks and vegetation, and as Sarah reached in Harry could see her withdraw a green and yellow turtle, about the size of her hand.

   “Yeah,” said Harry. “But maybe don’t tell anyone else that. I don’t want them shipping me off to some loony bin.”

   Sarah shrugged. “I still say you dreamed it,” she said walking back over with the turtle. “Do you remember Barney?”

   Harry shook his head and looked at the reptile wearily, but Sarah shoved him up into Harry’s face regardless.

   “But you’re his hero!” she cried, whirling the poor little beast around. “You saved him from a heron and we named you King of the Pond!”

   “Lucky me,” said Harry with a smile.

   She retracted the reptile and held him close to her chest, looking down at him and stroking his shell. “Are you going to be alright?” she asked quietly.

   Harry’s heart thumped. He wished he understood what she was, she seemed so sincere but how could she be?

   “Yeah,” he said, indulging the need to make her feel better. “So does Barney sleep in that tank?”

   “Uh, duh,” said Sarah giddily, distracted immediately. She skipped back over and started pointing out every rock and bit of vegetation. Harry wasn’t surprised to see Barney had a roommate in the shape of a pink, plastic unicorn.

   It wasn’t long before Lily sent her patronus up to call them down to help with dinner. Harry was used to pealing vegetables when he went and stayed with the Weasleys, but slipping into something that was obviously routine from Sarah’s complacent reaction was strange. They entered the kitchen and were set up with potatoes, carrots and onions for chopping and slicing. Sarah went straight to one of the cupboards and retrieved a small stool for herself to stand on, as well a little pinny apron to put on. She motioned for Harry to come stand beside her at one of the counters, and pulled out two knives from the block for them to use.

   Harry didn’t say anything, but he was grateful towards her for guiding him through the motions. His gut was telling him to keep his true memories a secret for now, and if Sarah could show him the ropes in this alien life that would go a long way towards helping him.

   Lily seemed to have forgotten a few of her worries, and was singing along tunelessly to the radio. Sarah caught Harry’s eye and smirked, making him bite his lip and chuckle over his veg. “Someone strangling a cat?” asked James as he strolled in.

   “You can wash up for that,” said Lily as she began to braise the beef.

   “I always wash up,” grumbled James, giving Lily a kiss on the top of her head and sweeping Harry and Sarah’s peelings into the kitchen bin. “How’s the head?” he asked Harry.

   He swallowed, not wanting to say the wrong thing. His dad was talking to him, his _dad._ They really did look alike, except James was going grey now. What _was_ he?

   “Okay,” said Harry, making sure his celery was in a neat pile that Sarah promptly swept into a big mess with all the other vegetables and threw into the pan over Lily’s beef.

   She sighed, and looked over at Harry and James as she stirred. “Did you speak to David?”

   James nodded. “Said Terry had nicked one of his best bottles and was suitably grounded for the foreseeable future.” He brushed his hands clean before popping outside and fetching a couple of butterbeers from the fridge Harry had seen earlier. Lily raised her eyebrows accusingly at Harry in the meantime.

   “I didn’t know that,” said Harry honestly as James returned.

   “Perhaps just stick to the light stuff, hmm?” he said, handing Harry and Sarah a bottle each. Sarah snorted and popped her cap off, whilst James endured a glare from Lily.

   “It’s not funny,” she said under her breath, jabbing the stew with her wooden spoon. James kissed her hair again, and they had a quick, hushed exchange of words under the mask of the radio, and Lily smiled at him.

   “What are you talking about?” said Sarah, jumping from her stool.

   “None you your beeswax,” said Lily, though she seemed back to her good mood. “Help your dad set the table. Harry mash the potatoes please.”

   He was handed the masher and ushered in front of the cooling pan as Lily threw a slosh of milk and several knobs of butter over the fluffy spuds. He began squishing them down, finding the motion therapeutic. Would this be what having a family would be like?

   They were soon dishing up and Harry’s stomach was growling like a wild beast. He hadn’t eaten anything in a long time, and the home made food smelled very good indeed.

   The conversation was mostly kept up by James and Sarah, as Harry wasn’t able to contribute much having no knowledge of the things they were discussing, and Lily seemed too preoccupied, glancing at him as she took small bites of her dinner. Harry on the other hand wolfed his portion down, and was offered seconds almost as soon as the last forkful touched his mouth. It reminded him distinctly of Molly Weasley, and a sadness flickered over him. He knew the Weasleys couldn’t really be dead, but Sarah’s words from earlier still gnawed at him.

   Sarah talked about an Astronomy project she was working on at length, mapping out the stars from over the past month. Apparently, since Hogwarts was closed, home schooling was the norm for most magical children, or so Harry could gather without asking too many questions. He felt that must be quite a lonely way to grow up.

   The conversation drifted to Lily and James’ work, but James seemed more excited about a stag do he was planning for ‘one of the young lads’ in the office rather than his job. He kept using code words like exotic ‘parrots’ and shots of ‘milk’ which made Sarah roll her eyes.

   “I’m almost _thirteen_ you know,” she told her dad. She liked telling people that it seemed. “I know what happens on stag dos.”

   “Oh yeah?” said Lily playfully, raising an accusatory eyebrow at James. “And what would that be?”

   “Everyone gets too drunk, and the groom ends up tied naked to a lamp post in Aberdeen.”

   James spat out his drink and Lily couldn’t help but laugh. “I told you she was listening,” she said, patting James on the back as he tried to mop up his lemonade.

   The more Harry saw of his family, the more he was beginning to doubt someone would go to the lengths needed to fabricate something this authentic. Sure, these people could be masquerading as his family. But if they were, it was a master performance, he thought as Lily and Sarah had an argument about the ratio of vegetables she’d eaten to mashed potato. At the threat of no desert a sulky Sarah shoved an unbelievable amount of cold carrots and peas into her mouth.   Harry couldn’t help but laugh. “Can di go geb da iss creabm dow?” she asked.

   After a moment of deliberation Lily caved, and once Sarah had swallowed her stew she darted out to the freezer in the garden as James cleared the plates and filled the sink with suds.  

   Harry felt a bit awkward, and was about to offer to dry, when Sarah’s voice floated in from outside. “Harry?” she said. “Can you come help me?”

   James and Lily shared a smile as Harry stood to go out to her. Lily rested her hand on his shoulder as he passed. “I think she’s happy you’re okay,” he said, letting him go.

   A knot tied in Harry’s gut as he stepped out into the freezing night air. He was most definitely not okay. The sun had set about an hour ago and the November air had dropped a few more degrees since he’d been out in his pyjamas. Sarah was silhouetted, standing in the doorway of the shed where she’d placed her broomstick earlier, beckoning Harry to come closer. “Hedwig had something,” she said eagerly, holding out a note for him to take. As soon as he did she nipped over and dove into the freezer for the ice-cream she had bartered for. “Did you send her back out again earlier?”

   “Yeah,” said Harry absently as he unravelled the strip of parchment. As soon as he saw what was written on it his heart leapt.

   “What is it?” asked Sarah, bouncing back over to him, tub in hand. Her teeth were chattering but her excitement she didn’t seem to mind.

   “Er,” said Harry. “I can’t really explain, but I need to pop out for a bit.”

   “Out?” said Sarah.

   “Yeah,” said Harry, hoping to avoid a grilling. “I need to go see someone.”

Sarah’s eyes darted towards the house. “But,” she said, confused. “It’s after curfew?”

   Harry had never had much time for curfews at Hogwarts, something he’d always fondly blamed his father for inheriting. “They won’t mind if I tell them it’s important though, will they?” he asked, aware that Sarah’s lips were turning blue and his feet were getting tingly.

   Sarah blinked. “Not them,” she said. “It’s the law, like, the real law. You’re underage so you can’t go out after dark. Oh!” she reconsidered. “Unless it’s an approved Floo route from our house?”

   Harry had no idea if his intended route was approved or not, but he doubted it. It must have shown on his face, because Sarah raised an eyebrow. “Mum won’t let you, how can you not remember that?”

   “Is it monitored?” asked Harry. “I mean, will it physically stop me going through the fire? It’s really important that I do this.”

   Sarah chewed her lip, glancing towards the kitchen again. “No,” she said. “It’s not going to stop you, it’ll just make a note of it, and the Ministry might send mum and dad a message alerting them that something’s up with our fireplace. Harry, what is it, where do you want to go?”

   He swallowed. They were taking too long, Lily and James would know something was up. “I need to find out what happened to me,” he said softly, hoping he wasn’t making a mistake. “I need to get answers, and I think this person could help.”

   Sarah stared at him with those icy blue eyes for just a bit too long, and Harry almost thought she was going to bolt into the house or scream for help. “Go,” she rasped suddenly. “Tell them you’re popping over to Terry’s to apologise to his dad, that the message is from him.” She winked at him. “I’ll cover for you.”

   Harry couldn’t believe his luck, and before he knew what he was doing he pulled her into a hug. “Thanks,” he said. “I mean it.” The ice cream in her hand was cold against his back, but it was such a pleasure to give his little sister a cuddle he didn’t care. Maybe none of this was real, but it felt real and he was going to get the most out of it whilst he could.

   “No problem big bro,” she said, and he could practically feel her grinning.

   They let go and she danced back out into the garden, because apparently she was incapable of walking anywhere, and Harry turned off the light and closed the door.

   “Took your time,” admonished James as they came back in, and he pretended he was freezing from the draught they’d left.

   Sarah tutted and plonked the ice cream in front of him. “You dish up,” she said. “Harry doesn’t need a bowl.”

   “Is he just going to stick his nose in it?” asked Lily sceptically.

   Harry could feel the heat rising under his collar. He was never a very good liar, and he wasn’t sure he could make a good job of this to the people he’d been dreaming about meeting his whole life. “No,” prompted Sarah naturally. “He got a message from Terry, didn’t you?”

   Apparently, she was a very good liar. Harry wondered where she’d got that from, glancing at his dad. At James, he corrected himself.

   “Yes,” he managed to force out, trying to focus. “He wants me to pop over, and I think it would be good to apologise to his dad.” He inhaled and concentrated on keeping his hands steady. “I didn’t realise it was the good stuff we were drinking.”

   Lily looked at the clock above their heads as James tapped his fingers on the table. “But I already spoke to him?” he said. “He wasn’t impressed, but I don’t think he needs another apology considering how ill you’ve been?”

   “Terry thought it was good idea,” said Harry a little too quickly, then prayed they wouldn’t ask to read the note he had screwed up in his hand.

   Lily looked back down from the clock and frowned as she slid open the cutlery drawer for some spoons. “That’s awfully considerate for Terry,” she said.

   Harry couldn’t have said either way; they had probably only ever said about fifty words to each other as far as he knew. He shrugged. “He was feeling guilty,” he said. “Maybe he wants to get out of being grounded?”

   “Ah,” said James, reaching for a spoon and popping open the ice cream. “That sounds more like him.”

   Lily slapped the back of his hand as he went to dig right out of the tub, and dropped a bowl meaningfully in front of him. “Okay,” she said finally. “But I don’t want you to stay too late.”

   Sarah gave him a hidden thumbs up under the table. “No problem,” said Harry, but he had no idea how long he was actually going to be out. “Thanks.” Feeling equally relieved and guilty, he gave them a self conscious nod and walked out of the kitchen before they could change their minds.

   “Take a coat!” Lily’s voice followed him out into the living room, and he paused by the fire place, out of their sight line. That was a very good idea, but where would his coat be? He remembered Sarah giving him that cloak earlier, so he went back into the hallway and started rummaging thought the coat rack. Sure enough, he found one that looked to be his size, and yanked it out to inspect it.

   A Devonshire Dynamos pin badge on the lapel confirmed for him this was the right one, and he was secretly quite pleased. It was thick, navy, and three-quarter length with shiny buttons that had little dragons on them. He slipped it on and it fitted like a glove, and he fastened it eagerly, then slid his hands into the pockets to see how deep they were.

   He was surprised to find something in one of them, and he removed it to find it was a wand.

   It was _his_ wand. He would know it in a heartbeat, it was like an extension of his own arm. It looked exactly like the one presented to him by Mr Olivander all those years ago. Same scratches and the faint scorch mark – it even smelt the same. Like Hedwig, the appearance of something so familiar to him after everything else had been so alien was a little overwhelming, and he just stopped and stared at it for a while.

   He had been so anxious all afternoon without it, but he hadn’t brought himself to ask for it. He felt that would have forced the hand of whoever was doing this to him, if there was anyone. Like proving he was in a cage by asking the jailor for the key; refusal would confirmed he was in trouble, and part of him had wanted to keep up the subterfuge.

   But now here it was, and he felt infinitely more secure to have it back in his hands. But for it to be the same wand, when everything else about him, even his _skin_ was different…how was that possible?

   He shook himself back to the here and now. Lily might still change her mind, so he turned and made his way back into the living room, heading straight for the old jam jar that held a supply of Floo Powder.

   He took one last look at the note in his hand before shoving it back into his pocket with his wand. He check to make sure Sarah had both their parents busy talking in the kitchen, then threw the silver powder into the flames, turning them green.

   “Pembury, Kent,” he said clearly but quietly, and stepped onto the coals as the fire tickled his feet, and whisked him away.

 

***

 

   Harry hadn’t travelled by Floo all that much, and had never mastered the knack of stepping gracefully out on the other end. So his first thought was to right his feet as the fire spat him back out, and not to tumble into anything. The second was, where was he?

   He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but he was stood in what looked like a magical corner shop. He’d been in several Muggle ones over the years, enough to recognise the cramped layout of the little shop, packed to the hilt with everyday essentials, but instead of Mars Bars and washing up liquid, this place had potion ingredients at cheap prices with foreign writing on the packaging. Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans were lined in boxes along the floor next to Chocolate Frogs, Liquorice Wands and Cauldron Cakes. Self-scouring brushes were vibrating in cellophane wrapping and bottles of cheep elderflower wine loomed from the top most shelves. A fine haze of dust was drifting through the air, probably caused by Harry tripping into the shop and disturbing where it had been happily settling for goodness knew how long.

   “Is someone there?” a wheezy voice called out, and Harry stopped brushing soot off his jeans and stood up straight.

   “Hello?” he replied, looking around the shelves. There were only a couple of aisles to the little shop, and a man in his fifties or sixties soon appeared, hastily pulling on a navy wizard’s hat. He was also wearing robes over his polyester blend uniform, so at least Harry was reassured his was in a magical place.

   “Oh a customer,” said the man happy, clapping his leathery hands together. “Oh can I help you sir?”

   Harry looked around, unsure. “I was trying to get to Pembury?” he asked.

   The man nodded eagerly. “Yes, yes, I’m the only fireplace connected to the network in the village. We don’t have any wizarding families mind you, so I just get the odd visitor from the nearby towns.”

   Harry felt bad, so he smiled and scooped up a couple of packs of Bertie Botts and some Sugar Quills. “Just these thanks,” he said, then realised he hadn’t picked up a wallet or anything from the house. He dug back into his deep coat pockets, and luckily was able to pull out a jumble of Muggle and wizard coins.   “Er,” he said, looking at what he had. “What do you take?”

   “Either,” said the man happily, taking Harry’s sweets and ringing them up on his clunky till. Harry held out what he had to offer, and the man picked out the rough amount from the two currencies.

   “Will you be wanting to travel back through the fire sir?” the man asked.

   “Actually,” said Harry, retrieving the scrap of paper. “You couldn’t point me in the direction of this address could you?” He showed the man what Hedwig had managed to find from wherever she had managed to uncover it. Not for the first time had he wondered if wizarding owls had some magic in their own right.

   “Oh yes,” said the man. He seemed a bit dizzy at not only having a customer, but one he could help further with directions, and in a second he had out a scrap of parchment, a quill and some ink. He jotted down bullet points of the way Harry needed to go, the tip of his tongue sticking out as he concentrated. Harry’s eyes wandered around, looking at the Drooble’s chewing gum that came with packs of collectable Quidditch playing cards stacked up in a little display. There was a rack of wizarding magazines next to cheep romance novels that Harry knew Molly Weasley liked to read.

   He leant on the counter, and his foot touched something propped up at the side. It was an old, disconnected Muggle satellite dish, that Harry pondered for a moment before the man caught his attention again

   “Here you are,” he said, handing over the parchment. “Shouldn’t take you more than ten minutes.”

   “Thanks,” said Harry sincerely, reading over the notes and heading to the door.

   “No trouble,” said the man. “Will you be coming back this way?”

   “Yeah, probably,” Harry told him, looking up as he reached the door and glanced over his shoulder. The man had picked up the satellite dish and was shaking out a cloth.

   “See you later then,” he said, smiling and dipping the cloth in a solution before beginning to buff the dish.

   With a little smile on his face, Harry left the shop assistant to his polishing. He pushed against the door, making the little bell tinkle as he stepped out into the cold winds, and pulled his coat tighter around his neck. He hadn’t thought to find a scarf or any gloves, so he just walked quickly to try and get his blood pumping.

   The man had written very precise directions, and Harry found himself walking down a little high street of independent bakers, pharmacies, banks and an electrical store with a cartoon handyman waving from the window. It seemed for every two shops there was an old, nicely kept pub, advertising Sunday roasts and space left for Christmas bookings.

   The village of Pembury was small and sleepy, and Harry hardly saw another soul as he traipsed passed house after house. A church towered over him as he rubbed his hands together and checked the man from the shop’s directions again, hoping he was nearly there. After successfully ducking out on the Potters and navigating the Floo network, he was starting to feel nervous about what was coming next. He didn’t doubt the integrity of Hedwig’s information, it was just what he was going to do when he got to his destination.

   The road curved upwards and the houses became larger and set further back, just like Harry’s instructions said they would. He passed a large oak tree with a playhouse built into its branches and a pirate flag hanging from the window. It was fluttering frantically in the strong winds, and Harry worried it might fly off its pole completely.

   He came to a crossroads, and he waited for the traffic lights to change before he navigated the few cars that were trundling along the road and reached the other side. He carried on walking right for a few minutes until he came finally to a house that had been turned into a business, evident from the large sign at the start of the drive, lit up with a couple of lamps hanging over its top.

   Harry’s heart skipped a beat. “You did it Hedwig,” he said softly to himself.

   _“Grangers Orthodontics,”_ it read in cheerful lettering. _“Keeping a smile on your face!”_

   It certainly was, thought Harry, and began to crunch his way down the driveway.

 

***

 

   The front door had a soft glow shining through the frosted glass pane engraved with the same logo Harry had seen on the sign out front. Gently he pushed it open, and a bell tinkled quietly to alert people of his presence. A rather plump middle aged West Indian lady was sat at the reception desk in front of him. She was talking on the phone in language Harry couldn’t even begin to understand, and eyed him suspiciously as he approached. She spoke a little more in her own tongue, then held the phone slightly away as he reached the desk.

   “We are closing in five minutes. Did you want an appointment?”

   “Actually,” said Harry through dry lips. “I’m here to see Hermione, do you know where she is?”

   The woman clicked her teeth. “The family residence is through the other door, this is for patients only, you should know this.”

   “Oh,” said Harry, feeling himself getting flustered with nerves. This could go so horribly wrong. “I’m really sorry. Could you maybe point me in the right direction.”

   The receptionist clicked her teeth again, then spoke briefly to whoever was on the phone and pressed a few buttons. “Dr Granger?” she said after a moment. “There is another boy here looking for your daughter.” Pause. “Okay.” She pressed her buttons again and began talking down the phone in her own dialect and ignored Harry.

   Should he wait, what was happening? He was feeling very hot after being out in the cold and now standing in the central heating, bundled up like an Eskimo. This was a bad idea. He was debating whether or not to ask the receptionist again or just simply run away, when a lady in a white doctor’s coat walked through the double doors on his right.

   “Can I help you?” she asked a little coolly as she approached where Harry stood.

   “Um,” stuttered Harry. “Yes – I...are you Hermione’s mum then?”

   The woman, Dr Granger apparently, nodded. “Yes I am. What do you want to see Hermione for, it’s late.”

   It was only about six thirty, Harry was sure, but he didn’t say anything. “I need her help with something,” he said, trying to regain his confidence. “It’s really important.”

   Dr Granger, looked him up and down and folded her arms. “You know,” she began, shaking her head. “I don’t like you boys being round here, Hermione’s a good girl.”

   Harry stared at Dr Granger, and slowly he felt his eyebrows raise. Just what was she talking about? “I know Hermione’s a good girl,” he said defensively. “That’s why I need her help. Please, is she here?”

   Dr Granger was quite a tall woman, and her hair was just as brown and fly away as her daughter’s as she flicked it over her shoulder in agitation. “Come with me.”

   They went through the double doors she had just entered through, crossed a waiting room full of chairs and a selection well used of toys littered across the floor. A lone teenage boy was sat dejectedly on their right. He was skinny with a lot of pimples. “I’ll be with you in just a moment Thomas,” Dr Granger told him in a clipped voice, then pushed through another door that read ‘Private – Do No Enter.’

   This door led to a large entrance hall with several doors leading off. The carpet swirled with various tones of red and black, the lights on the wall weren’t quite as bright as they needed to be and the air was slightly musty compared to the mouthwash scent lingering in the surgery. They headed up a flight of stairs, turned the corner right and went to the door on the left. “Hermione,” called Dr Granger, knocking smartly on the door. “Come out here please.”

   There was a scrambling noise through the wood, hurried footsteps and then someone grappled for the door. Hermione Granger appeared in the crack, but no sooner had she seen the two of them on the other side she gasped and closed the door. Harry had spotted a line of metal across her teeth when she’d gasped, and when the door was jerked open again, the line was gone.

   “Yes?” she asked, her eyes flicking between her mother and Harry. Her wispy curls were even bigger than usual, a pen was sticking out from her ear and ink smudged her cheek. She looked to be wearing a school uniform, a black tartan skirt with a purple jumper over a white shirt.

   “Do you know this boy?” said Dr Granger, crossing her arms again.

   Hermione glanced at Harry and rapped her fingers on the door she was hanging on to. “Um,” she faltered. “No – I mean, I don’t think so.”

   “Hermione, I think enough is enough of this!” hissed her mother, ignoring the fact that Harry was standing by her side. “We’ve talked about this and-”

   “I don’t know him,” she said earnestly.

   “Hey, hey” said Harry, holding up his hands. “I really didn’t mean to upset anyone. I just...I just desperately need some help and I think Hermione’s the only one who can.”

   Hermione’s face flickered in sympathy before becoming slightly panicky. “Oh,” she breathed. “You’re Dominic Webber’s friend aren’t you?”

   Harry was contemplating his latest lie of the day, when Hermione’s mother interjected. “Hermione Granger I don’t think-”

   “Mum, it’s fine,” Hermione told her defiantly, leant out of her room, grabbed Harry by the arm and yanked him inside, closing the door behind them. “I’m really sorry about that, she’s a bit...well normally I get people to make appointments but don’t worry about that. Do you want something to drink? Or eat? I don’t have anything in here but I could get it in a minute, take your order so to speak. Did you find the house alright? Take a seat, on the bed I mean, I normally get another chair from the waiting room but maybe best to wait till she’s calmed down a bit. Or at least has an appointment. What time is it? You can take your coat off too, just chuck it anywhere. What was your name? Dominic didn’t say specifically what you wanted but I’m happy to help whatever.” All this, more or less, was said in one breath.

   Harry was too scared to do anything else but take his coat off and sit on the bed. He watched as Hermione tore around her bedroom as she talked. She dropped something from her hand into a little box – the wire from her teeth that he now saw was attached to a plastic plate. She scooped up several old mugs and collected them on the edge of her desk, piled up and potted various text books and items of stationary on the desk, and made an attempt to stealthily smooth down her hair as she passed her mirror on the wall, but when she spotted the ink mark she gasped in horror and vigorously tried to rub it off.

   “Are you alright?” Harry asked, concerned as this new Hermione looked close to tears. He had been worried about finding her, that she’d even exist in this bizarre place he’d woken up with, but now he was just plain worried about her.

   “Um, yeah, no fine,” she said, abandoning the mirror and sitting on the chair by her desk. She then seemed unsure of what to do with her hands, so sat on them and tapped her heals.

   Her room was pretty neat, books of all kinds were piled around the floor, but there weren’t any clothes lying around and all her work was arranging and labelled according to subject. There were kittens everywhere, on posters, on the bedspread, as little ornaments on her bookcase, making Harry think of Sarah and her unicorns. There were also a number of posters featuring the same five men with floppy hair and sultry eyes. Harry tried not to look at them, at least they didn’t move. In one corner there were several stacks of sheet music, as well as a flute and a violin, each on their respective stands. The music looked quite complex, but then again Harry didn’t read music so who was he to judge.

   He was just about to speak, when she spun round and grabbed a notepad from a choice of about a dozen spotted about the desk. “So,” she said turning back and visibly trying to calm her breathing down. “I’m so sorry about my mum’s behaviour, honestly this is fine. Um, Dominic mentioned it was Religious Studies coursework, is that right?”

   Harry stared at her. “I’m sorry what?” he asked. He’d had so many strange goings on already today, he wasn’t quite sure how to cope with how his friend was behaving, which was certainly a few notches up from her usual level of crazy that was for sure.

   “Your homework?” she said, confused. “Didn’t Dominic explain how it works? All you need to give me the brief and I’ll get it done for whenever you need it. They all do it, it’s fine. I mean, this is a bit of a surprise, I hadn’t scheduled...but it’s not a problem!” She seemed to get a bit scared. “Whenever you need it, I’ll get it done.”

   “You do other people’s homework?” questioned Harry, getting completely off topic. “Why?” He could understand when she got frustrated and organised his and Ron’s revision or something, but they were her best friends, and she never actually _did_ the homework for them, she said it was unethical.

   Hermione’s eyes flicked between him and the door. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

   He sighed, the daunting task back at hand. “No, I’m afraid it’s not,” he told her kindly. “I’m really sorry, but I don’t know who Dominic is – it seemed like it was the best way to get your mum off my back. She didn’t seem to like me.”

   “Oh,” said Hermione deflated. “Well...I guess she doesn’t like what I do. Sorry.”

   Harry shook his head, trying to force his thoughts in order. “What do you do – do they pay you or something?”

   Hermione ruffled her hair and threw her shoulders back. “Well if you’re not his friend then who are you and what do you want? You don’t go to my school.”

   Harry regarded this girl who looked like his best friend. There were so many subtle differences; the way her fingers moved, the pace and pitch of her voice, the wary way her eyes roamed his features. Perhaps this wasn’t the best idea, but he didn’t know who else to turn to. He still couldn’t trust that this all wasn’t some kind of construct of Voldemort’s or Fudge’s, a trap or a trick to hurt him. He hadn’t wanted to find this world’s Dumbledore because as much as he trusted the headmaster to help him, he really knew very little about him. Hermione on the other hand he felt he knew inside out, and the fact that Hedwig had found her had convinced him that she would be the one to help figure this all out. If she was imaginary or a trick he hoped he could spot the difference, but at the moment it was a bit hard to tell. She was pretty different to the confident young woman he’d grown to think of as family over the past four years.

   “Hermione,” he began cautiously. “If I say ‘Hogwarts’, does that mean anything to you?”

   She stared blankly at him. “No,” she said.

   “Okay, do you ever find that,” he searched for the right word. “Unusual things happen around you sometimes.”

   She froze, her eyes fixed on him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said guardedly.

   “Like,” he said, thinking of his own magical experiences before finding out he was a wizard. “Like things exploding around you, or maybe you really wanted something to change and then it did, or you ended up in a place where you weren’t expecting, Physically I mean-”

   “Nope, nothing like that,” she told him quickly. She folded her arms and crossed her legs, her higher foot bouncing in the air. But Harry could sense he was on to something.

   “So you’ve never done anything or seen anything that made you go ‘What the Hell! How in the world did that happen?!’ or anything, you know, like that?”

   Hermione’s face had darkened and her foot had stopped bouncing. “No,” she said coldly.

   Harry looked at the floor, then back at her. “I have,” he said sincerely. “All the time. But today’s sort of taken the biscuit, so I was hoping we could talk about it.”

   “You’ve seen what?” she asked cynically. “Things exploding? That doesn’t sound all that strange to me, we just had bonfire night.”

   “Magic,” he said simply. “Real, live, magic.”

   Hermione looked at him, her mouth in a line. “Did Dominic put you up to this?” she asked, her voice quivering. “Or maybe my good old friend Jenny Richards, you know, his girlfriend with the blonde hair and skanky wardrobe?”

   “What?” asked Harry, leaning back.

   “Isn’t it enough,” she demanded, “that you traipse into my home, laden me down with all your work, humiliate and use me, now you want to bring that all up again? Isn’t it enough!”

   Tears threatened to spill from the corners of her eyes as she glared Harry down. He was horrified; he had been prepared to handle many reactions to his presence – badly, but prepared at least – but there was no way he could have imagined what was unfolding in front of him now.

   “Hermione!” he cried. “I’m not here to upset you, I really just need your help, I don’t know those people-”

   “Then how to you know about the science lab!?” she shouted, jumping to her feet and advancing over to him. “Things exploding, do you think I’m an idiot?”

   “Hermione, please,” he retorted, jumping to his own feet.   “You’re not an idiot, I know that-”

   “You have no idea who I am!” she said, the tears falling down her face. “I’m just some joke to you people, you have no clue who I really am!”

   “You’re my best friend!” Harry exploded. “We go to school together, you’re the smartest person I know and I really, really need your help.”

   Her face screwed up in a sort of horrified confusion. “I’ve never met you before,” she growled through gritted teeth.

“I know you haven’t,” he agreed, the desperation seeping into his voice. “But I’ve know you for four years, at school-”

   “What school?” she snapped.

   He took a deep breath. “Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

   “Right,” said Hermione evenly.

   In one fluid movement she lent under her desk, grasped a tennis racket, and flung it round in a circle to a point over her shoulder. _“Get out!”_ she shouted, and Harry backed up around the bed, shock refusing to let him think properly. Hermione was attacking him.

   “Hermione no!” he begged, “I’m sorry, let me explain!”

   “No! You let ME explain,” she yelled, waving the racket around dangerously. “I don’t care who you tell anymore, I won’t be abused like this, I won’t be taunted!”

   “I’m not taunting you!”

   “Yes you ARE!” she snarled as he hit the door and couldn’t go any further backwards. “Witchcraft – magic – I don’t know what happen to the windows or lights, but those things aren’t real – you can tell people I’m a freak, I’d rather be alone than suffer this anymore!”

   “You’re not a freak,” said Harry, his eyes wide, his heart racing. “It’s all real, you’re a witch and I’m your friend.”

   She raised the racket to take aim. _“GET OUT”_

_“ACCIO RACKET!”_

   Harry hadn’t know what else to do. His wand was in his hand before he’d had time to think, and now the tennis racket was in the other.

   She looked from her hand, to the racket, to her hand again. “Hermione?” Harry asked in trepidation.

   She fainted.

 

***

 

   Harry only just caught her before her head hit the bed post. The racket and his wand bounced on the floor as he snatched her in his arms. What had he done?

   “Hermione?” he said, stroking her hair from her face. “Hermione are you okay?” She refused to wake up, so he hefted her up and onto her bed, resting her head on her pillow. “Hermione?” he whispered. “Hermione please wake up.” Her eyes fluttered, and relief swept through him. It only lasted a second.

   She gasped and tried to pull away from him. “It’s okay!” he cried. “I promise it’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you.”

   She looked wildly around the room. “How did you do that?” she asked hoarsely. “With the racket, what was that?”

   Harry leant over the bed and retrieved his wand. “It was magic,” he said slowly. “Some people, they can do magic. The wand controls it, and when you don’t have one sometimes it escapes in odd places, doing things uncontrollably. I’d guess that’s what’s been happening to you.”

   Hermione’s lip trembled and her fists clenched.

   “It’s okay,” he told her again.

   “I...” she tried to start. “It...” Her face contorted, and unable to hold it in any more, she burst into tears. “I can’t control it I swear!” She looked at him, scared and pleading. “I don’t mean to do it!” Harry grabbed her and wrapped his arms around her whilst she sobbed.

   “Sssh,” he soothed her. “It’s okay, that’s normal.”

   “I’m _not_ normal.”

   He pulled back and couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Normal for a witch I mean. You’re a witch Hermione Granger. And I’m a wizard.” She hiccupped and wiped her hands on her eyes.

   “I don’t know your name.”

   “Harry Potter,” he said kindly. He was both pleased and sad she didn’t recognise it. He wasn’t famous but neither was he her friend.

   “How come you know about magic but I don’t Harry Potter?” she asked. “How did you get a wand to control it?”

   Harry rocked back and sat further down on the bed, giving her some space. “That is a good question, Hermione Granger,” he said with a smile, but she just stared at him, wide eyed, and sniffed. “Erm,” he thought about how best to explain. “Okay, there some witches and wizards who are born into Muggle families –a Muggle is a person who doesn’t have magic – and it’s like the magic’s been hiding for a few generations. So they don’t know they’re magic until they get the letter inviting them to the magic school. Whereas other kids have magic parents so it’s no surprise to them.”

   “So...it’s like a gene?”

   Harry raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know what that means.”

   She waved a hand, the tears all but gone now. “That’s okay – so I’m the Muggle kind of witch?”

   “‘Muggle-born’ we call it,” explained Harry. “And yeah, spot on. So...” Now it was going to get tricky. “It seems, in this place, there’s a war going on for all the witches and wizards. I don’t know how much the Muggles know, but back in the eighties apparently they decided it was too dangerous to be introducing new people into our world, so they stopped inviting the Muggle-borns to Hogwarts. To protect them I guess.” He hoped he’d quoted his sister right.

   “So,” said Hermione, getting a bit incensed. “I’ve been a witch this whole time, and somebody else decided I couldn’t go to a proper school! Do you know what I’ve been through?”

   All Harry could do was shrug his shoulders and agree. “Yeah, no – you’re right, it sucks. But that’s why you don’t have a wand – but you can do magic.”

   “I know I can,” she snapped. “I turned my father’s beard blue when I was seven because he wouldn’t allow me on a school trip. Whenever I drop a plate it fixes itself and I...well...I sort of blew up the science lab a couple of years ago.”

   Harry reached over her shoulder and pulled a tissue from a box she had on her nightstand and placed it on the duvet between them. “Right, now, watch carefully.” He cleared his throat. “Wingardium Leviosa.” The tissue floated a foot or so upwards and then stayed there. Hermione’s whole body tensed, but other than that she watched, taking it in. Harry twitched his wand and it floated back down again.   “Okay,” he said, passing over his wand. She took it carefully from him. “Now you have a go. It’s not your own wand, so it might not work as well-”

   But she didn’t give him a chance to finish. Without protest or question, Hermione turned her attention to the tissue. “Wingardium Leviosa,” she said, imitating him perfectly and trying to copy the wand motion.

   The whole bed shook. “Whoa!” cried Harry in delight as Hermione dropped the wand and covered her mouth in shock. “It’s okay,” he said as she let out a deep breath and covered her heart.

   “I’m a witch,” she said thickly.

   Harry smiled picking up his wand. “You’re the best witch,” he told her, leaning in. “You’re the best witch in the whole of Hogwarts.”

   Hermione looked at him and frowned. “But how do you know that? You said I never had a wand. You said we went to school together, but now you’ve just explained that we didn’t. I’ve definitely never met you before.”

   Harry sighed and rubbed his head. “I’m not quite sure how to explain it,” he said. “I’m not really sure myself. What I do know, is that last night I was at Hogwarts, I got really angry, made a mess. Then there was this, I don’t know, storm I guess, it went crazy, and I blacked out. When I woke up, it was like the world had been recreated around me, like there’s a different history, I don’t even feel like I’ve got the same body, not really.” He pointed to his head. “I should have a massive scar there because of when my parents died when I was a baby. Today, my parents are alive and I have no scar.” Hermione’s mouth was hanging open. “Oh and,” he added to sort of apologise to her. “When I got the scar and my parents died, I also killed an evil wizard. That didn’t happen either so he’s still running round and that’s why you couldn’t go to school. So, sorry.”

   Hermione blinked and formed a funny shape with her mouth. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, I think you’re definitely going to have to explain all of that right from the beginning.”

 

***

 

   Harry did his best, detailing all the differences from his memories and what seemed to have happened in the place he was now. Hermione listened intently, asking numerous questions, never needing to be told anything twice.

   “But how can it be happening?” he asked her, his voice feeling slightly hoarse having talked so much. “Am I dreaming?”

   “Well,” Hermione said, ponderously. “I would be inclined to say you’re not dreaming, as I know I’m real. I can assure you I have a lifetime of memories, you didn’t make me up.” Harry frowned at considered that. “Of course,” she continued, catching onto his wave of thought before he’d even been able to organise it properly himself. “You don’t know that, do you? I’m just telling you that – but, look around. You think what you’re seeing is real in a dream until you wake up, but have you ever thought you’re dreaming when you’re awake? Does this look real to you?”

   Harry gazed around Hermione’s bedroom, and oddly felt even more dejected. “No, this looks real,” he agreed. “But what other option does that leave? Time travel?”

   “Why would you jump to that conclusion?” she asked, bewildered, then Harry explained about their exploits with the Time-Turner in their third year.

   “Maybe someone went back and changed something, before I was born or something, so now reality is different?” He’d already tried to convince himself that couldn’t have been the case, but he voiced it out loud anyway, if only to be rebuffed.

   Hermione sat in quiet contemplation for a minute. “But you didn’t have the hourglass did you?”

   Harry rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe someone else did?” But she was already shaking her head.

   “You said that everything that happened when you – we – went back in time had already happened. Like you actually being the one to make the deer appear with that expecto patronum thingy.” Harry nodded. “Then that would suggest you wouldn’t notice the difference if someone had changed time – do you get me?”

   Harry frowned. “You mean, for me, it would be like that was the way it’d had always been?” That’s exactly what he’d told himself.

   “Yes,” she said enthusiastically. “You wouldn’t have woken up and realised anything was amiss. I’m not entirely ruling it out – there may be other ways to go back and change time that would leave you out of the...um...rewrite. But from what you’ve explained that doesn’t seem to be what happened.” She let out a little laugh. “Gosh, this is crazy, I can’t believe we’re talking about this.”

   That made sense to Harry, but it was still another dead end. “Okay, well I’m out of ideas,” he sighed and lent back on her bed post. She chewed her lip and stared off into the middle distance.

   “You’ve woken up,” she muttered. “You’re still ‘you’ but your body’s changed and so has the history around you.”   Harry watched her, the cogs almost visibly turning in her head. She looked sheepishly up at him. “I read something once..and I’ve seen it in TV shows...but you might think I’ve lost my mind.”

   Harry blinked. “I’ve just told you you’re a witch. Try me.”

   “Well,” she said, smiling a little. “Okay. So, um, it’s a bit sciencey, but I’ll try and keep it simple.” Harry nodded so she went on. “There are things call dimensions, it’s like the way we organise how we understand reality. The first dimension is like when you see a square drawn on paper. Then the second dimension would be the same square drawn as a cube – or more obviously when you have a photograph – it’s flat but what it represents is the third dimension.” Harry decided now would not be the time to mention magical moving photographs and just nodded to show he was keeping up. “So, the third dimension is physical.” She patted the bed and illustrated her room with her hand. “Everything you can touch, everything that has physical form is three dimensional.”

   “Right,” he said, “rubbing his head. “Right, okay yeah I get all that, but what does it have to do with my parents being alive?” She held her finger up.

   “Well, scientists and maybe philosophers too I guess have been speculating for the past couple of hundred years about the fourth and fifth dimensions. From what I can gather, the fourth dimension is sort of like quantum physics, where two things are in the same place at once. And the _fifth,_ the fifth is supposedly a displacement of spacetime.”

   “I thought we ruled out time travel?” Harry asked, becoming increasingly confused, but Hermione waved her hands to stop him.

   “No, no – not time, _spacetime._ It can be time travel, but it’s also space that exists at the same time but we can’t see it.” She saw Harry raise his eyebrows, so she sat up eagerly to explain further. “So, in these TV shows, they use this theory when a character somehow finds a way to move between one reality to another – an it’s an alternate reality, a parallel universe. So for them, the world has changed, because one event happened differently, and the people they know, their lives happened differently. And sometimes the character meets them self – then there’s two of them, but _sometimes_ the character’s mind or soul or whatever pushes their doppelganger out of their own body, so there’s just one of them, nobody knows the difference apart from that person.

   “Okay, okay,” she said, shoving her hair from her face. “With this fifth dimension, someone’s developed this theory – like the TV shows, that there are parallel worlds existing side by side. Trillions upon trillions of them. For every possible decision ever made, for every ‘yes’ and ‘no’ there is a world created where every outcome happened. So if you found a – a doorway, a link of some sort, in theory you could jump between them.”

   She was flushed and out of breath. Harry felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. “So...” he said slowly. “Last night...I travelled to a parallel universe?”

   Hermione took a deep breath, her eyes wide as they flicked over his face. “Yes. I think so.” She bunched her fists. “If magic can make you travel in time, why couldn’t it make you travel in space as well?”

   He couldn’t focus his eyes, all the blood was draining from his head and a wave of nausea swept through his body. He rolled over and seized the bedpost in order to stop him falling completely off the bed.

   His home was untouchable. No matter how far he walked, flew, drove, he could never reach it. He was breathing too fast, no oxygen was reaching his lungs, and Hermione scrambled across the mattress as he felt his arms giving way. She grabbed his shoulders, her body pressing on his. He could feel her, she was real, warm and breathing. “Harry, are you alright?”

   He let her pull him back into the centre of the bed, and he gasped in a lungful of air to steady himself. The room was still spinning though, and he clutched onto Hermione’s arms, her school jumper rough in his hands. “I’m so lost,” he breathed, his eyes finding hers. He took hold of handfuls of duvet, squeezing them. “Where am I?” he asked desperately. “Where’s my home?”

   “Harry,” she said, her tone frightened but commanding. “Harry if I’m right, your home is right where you left it! We just have to find a way to get you through that doorway again, reverse the dimensional leap.”

   He blinked and took a genuine breath of air, feeling heady as the oxygen found its way to into the depths of his lungs. “Really?” he said, shakily.

   She smoothed his hair from his face, a very natural movement that she jerked away from embarrassed halfway through. Harry experience a flare of hatred for a world that had hurt his best friend so badly.   “Um,” she said, recovering herself. “Yes, I think so. We’ll need to work out the exact circumstances that led up to your passing out and shifting universe, but I bet we can.”

   Harry covered his eyes; he could feel himself shaking as he tried to hold onto the facts. He had travelled into a world that existed alongside his own, taken another Harry’s body from him, and along the way someone, somewhere had made a decision that meant Voldemort had not attacked his home, had not killed his parents and Sirius had not been framed. Where Voldemort was still at large, terrorising the wizarding world. Killing Ron and the Weasleys and Neville Longbottom amongst how many others, he had no idea. He had arrived at this place by travelling through a doorway, and if he could just find it again then maybe, just maybe he could get himself home.

   And yet that also meant…That meant it was real. They were really his parents, he’d really just met his little sister. It wasn’t a trick. He felt a lump thicken in his throat.

   “I know I have no right to ask,” he said, lowering his hands from his face. “I don’t know you and I’ve just turned your life upside down. But, will you help me...please?”

   Hermione looked at him, eyes widening and jaw dropping. “Harry,” she cried, grasping his hands, her earlier embarrassment at touching him forgotten. “You have _every_ right to ask me!” She seemed to glow as she smiled at him, shaking her head. “Damn right you’ve turned my life upside down. I’m a witch! I’m not some awful freak of nature, there are others like me and I’m going to find them and get myself a wand and learn magic even if I have to teach myself! The least I can do is help you get home.”

   Harry didn’t trust himself to speak, he just pulled her into a bear hug, burying his face in her mane of hair. “Thank you,” he whispered.

   They lingered like that until the lump disappeared from Harry’s throat. They pulled apart and he laughed in relief. “When I arrived, I was trying to test whether or not you were really Hermione, my Hermione I mean and not someone disguised as her, see if I could trust you.”

   She shifted on the bed. “Did I pass?” she asked quietly.

   He was the one to take her hands this time. “With flying colours.”

   She beamed at him. “So what do we do now?”

   “I was hoping you’d know,” he admitted. “I guess we could go back to my house, look over my kitchen where I appeared. My parents have a ridiculous amount of books I noticed earlier, it’s like they’ve got their own library. There might be something documented there.”

   Harry was quite impressed at this plan, it seemed promising and had all the right components to it that a plan should. A journey. Research. He thought Hermione would have been impressed too, but a look of mild panic swept across her face. “Oh, I don’t think I can go to your house,” she stammered.

   “Oh,” replied Harry. “Why not?”

   “It’s late,” she explained. “I don’t know you – well I mean my parents don’t know that I know you. They won’t let me.” She folded her hands in her lap.  

   “Well couldn’t you say you were going to the library, or a friend’s house or something?” She wouldn’t look up at him.

   “I don’t have any friends,” she said quietly. “I don’t go out. Ever.”

   Pity welled up in Harry as he looked at his best friend, but it was soon replaced with a surge of determination. “Well that’s the old Hermione,” he told her cheerfully, tapping her on the knee so she would look at him. She did. “Hermione the Witch already has a best friend, and he’s inviting her to his house. And” he added after a beat. “He’ll help her fib to her parents about going to the library if necessary.” He winked at her and her tension eased into a giggle.

   “Okay then,” she nodded. “Lead the way.”

 

***

 

   Hermione opted to talk to her dad in the end, and Harry waited outside his study whilst Hermione talked about a geometry text book that they needed but was only at Pembury Library. She came out a moment later grinning. “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it,” he said mischievously.

   They bundled up into coats and scarves, and stepped back out into the freezing wind. Harry indicated they should walk left and they began their journey back to the public Floo station.

   Hermione pulled a rectangular box-like object out of her pocket and started to push buttons on it clumsily with gloved fingers. Harry suddenly realised it was a mobile phone she was turning on. “Erm,” said Harry, “I don’t know if you’ll actually be able to use that.”

   Hermione looked at him. “Why not?”

   “Well, magic interferes with electrical things like phones or CD players, they just sort of hiss and fizz and you can’t do anything with them.”

   Hermione looked stricken. “Oh, but, I told my dad I’d be able to phone them.” There was a slight pleading note in her voice, like she was asking Harry to change the laws of magic.

   Harry grinned. “You can owl them if you need to,” he said reassuringly. “Don’t worry.”

   “Owl them?” So Harry explained about owl post, and told her that his owl, Hedwig, was exceptionally good at delivering letters. Hermione seemed quite charmed by the idea of owls flying through the air with letters tied to their feet and forgot all about her phone.

   As they were walking past the tree house with the pirate flag (it had managed to hang on still) Hermione broke the silence. “So, you said we were best friends,” Harry nodded. “And that there was another boy – John was it?”

   “Ron,” Harry corrected as they walked down the steps.

   Hermione nodded. “So what’s he like, in this world I mean, is he Muggle-born too?”

   “No,” said Harry, “definitely not Muggle-born. His family’s one of those old wizarding families, they’re really great, we spend the summer holidays there a lot,” he allowed himself to grin. “There’s nine of them.”

   “Nine?!” said Hermione shocked.

   Harry laughed. “Yeah, it’s a bit mad.” He thought to himself. “Let’s see, there’s Charlie, Bill – no, sorry, Bill _then_ Charlie, um, Percy, Fred and George – they’re twins, then it’s Ron and the youngest is Ginny. I don’t know how their parents cope. And we’re always over there every summer, I’m not sure how Molly feeds us all, but she certainly does and then some. ”

   “So he’d be more or less the same in this world then,” guessed Hermione, smiling to herself. “I’d love to meet him.” But Harry’s face fell, and Hermione saw it. “What’s wrong?”

   Harry stopped walking. They were outside someone’s front garden; there was a colourful little windmill spinning madly in the breeze and Harry could see the blue glow of the owner’s television coming from their front room. “I never defeated Vol-” he stopped himself, thinking of his mother’s reaction earlier. “You-Know-Who.” Hermione just watched him, so he carried on. “So he kept on killing people, growing in power. The Weasley family, I guess they represent the opposite of everything he does. They’re kind, they love Muggles, they’re true and loyal.”

   He sighed, shakily, and found himself sitting on the small wall running across the front of the garden they were by. “They were murdered,” he said, his voice cold and empty. “All of them.”

   Hermione was pale. “Oh Harry,” she said quietly, “I’m so sorry.” She sat down by him and put her hand on his arm. Harry gazed at the quarter moon.

   “I met my parents for the first time today,” he said, still staring at the moon, the lump rising in his throat again. “I was like you growing up, I never knew I was a wizard – my aunt and uncle hated me because they were so scared of the magic, so they bullied me and made me sleep in a cupboard.”

   Harry ignored the aghast noise Hermione made and carried on, worried if he didn’t get these words out now he would never be able to. “And then when I found out the truth, about Hogwarts and everything...I also found out my parents weren’t killed in a car crash. They were murdered trying to protect me from _him_. It’s _my fault_ they’re dead.” The tears were rolling down his face without him even really noticing, hot and salty as they crept into his mouth. “And now I’ve got them back, but Ron’s dead, the world’s a mess and all I’m focusing on is getting home but I’m _running away from my family.”_ He turned to her. “I have a sister, a real, live sister. Her name’s Sarah and she’s _great_. She covered for me so I could come here and she has this turtle that I’m slightly worried about but she loves him and there’s all these unicorns.” He shook his head. “My mum is worried about me, she thinks I’m her son and she’s worried about him. But when she relaxes she just sings, all the time, she’s terrible but I love it, and my dad – my dad is just as much of a trouble maker as I always hoped he was.” Hermione bit her own lip and Harry dropped his face to stare at his lap.

   “I know it’s not right, I have to go home. But, this is everything I ever wanted.”

   Hermione’s hand was rubbing his back. She let him cry it out, their roles reversed for the second time that evening. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through,” she said sympathetically. “I want to tell you it’s all going to be okay, but...it’s not.” He looked up at her, the wind cutting through his wet face. “You’re right, this isn’t where you belong and you can’t stay.” He tried to swallow, but he was so choked it came out as a sort of cough.

   “But can’t you see,” she continued, “You being here is such a miracle? Now you know, that somewhere out there in the universe your parents are alive, and you’ll never forget that, no matter what reality you’re in.”

   Harry let that sink in a minute, and a small smile pulled at his lips.

   “There’s another Harry,” Hermione continued. “And this is life. You can’t steal it from him, you have to give it back.   But,” she added, wrapping her arm around him. “There’s nothing to say you can’t borrow it a while.”

   Harry hugged her back, and was vaguely aware of the curtains being twitched in the house behind them. “I’ll never forget this,” he said in a muffled voice, his head buried in her scarf. “You’re right.”

   “And I’ll never forget you Harry Potter,” she pulled away and took hold of his shoulders. He looked at her, and sense of calm seeping through him. This is why he’d wanted to find her. She always knew the right path.

   “Do you want to know why I made that science lab explode?” she asked him, and he shook his head, wiping his face with his glove and inhaling the icy night air. “That girl I mentioned, Jenny. She saw me fix a jar of honey I cracked in Home Economics, it was right in my hand, I looked at it and the crack disappeared. I didn’t realise she’d seen me do it until her and her mates grabbed me by the hair a week later and dragged me into the lab. She started smashing test tubes, they were all pushing me around, demanding I fix the damage. They got me the floor, she...she had a bottle in my face. She said if I didn’t show her how I did it she’d cut my face and they could all see me try and fix that.” It was Harry’s turn to be horrified, instinctively looking at her face for any scars.

   “What did you do?”

   “I didn’t know I was doing it, not really. But the windows, the light fittings – they all exploded. The Bunsen burners, every one of them turned on and the flames almost reached the ceiling. The sprinklers completely doused us but the fire were still going.

   “At the time, I felt powerful, they all ran screaming. But then the terror set in, I couldn’t explain what I’d done, and it wasn’t long before Jenny’s boyfriend showed up to blackmail me.” She pulled Harry to his feet and tucked her hair behind her ears to stop it blowing in her face.

   “From what you’re telling me, I could have had a happy life, with a best friend like you. But I’ve been tortured,” she spat out. “Lonely and ashamed of who I was. I’ve lost years of my life because I was too afraid of what I was, what they could do to me. Of how they’d hurt me. But you’ve saved me, Harry!” She laughed and turned around on the spot, extending her arms and talking to the stars. “By being here you’ve given me a new life. You, this Harry, you’ve done that.” She looked back down at him, tears edging at the corners of her own eyes. “And when you go back home, you’ll know that, just as you’ll know your parents love you, and you got the chance to know that, to know them.”

   “Hermione,” he said, lost for words. “You’re amazing. Thank you.” He hugged her once again, and she laughed, emotion breaking through the sound.

   “Well that’s what friends are for isn’t it?” She took his hand and they started walking down the path again. “Now tell me all about this Ron.”

 

***

 

   It was just before eight o’clock when Harry and Hermione got back to the corner shop, and Hermione stopped and stared. “How had I never noticed that before?” she asked, amazed, turning her head right to left, no doubt realising that the shop was sort of sliding in and out of her vision, like all magical buildings.

   “Muggles can’t see it at all,” Harry explained. “But you weren’t looking for it before, so now you know it’s there you can.”

   “Wow,” said Hermione.

   “That’s just the start of it,” said Harry eagerly, and pushed the door for them to head inside.

   “Hello again,” cried the shop assistant, folding up his newspaper. “Oh, and you have a friend!” Harry wasn’t sure the man would be able to cope with two people in his tiny shop, and he looked fit to burst with pride as Hermione looked around, open-mouthed in awe.

   “Could we use your fireplace?” Harry asked, relieved to be back in the warm.

   “Course, course,” said the man, beckoning for them to follow him as he made his way around the counter and past his gleaming satellite dish. “You need some powder?”

   Harry paused. “Oh, yeah,” he said, but he was pretty sure he didn’t have any more money, and wondered if maybe Hermione did.

   But the man reached up to an old tobacco tin and opened it for them to see it had been scrubbed clean and filled with sparkling Floo powder. “On the house,” he said with a flourish.”

   “Oh, thank you,” said Harry genuinely. “You’ve been really kind.” He realised Hermione was just staring at the powder being offered to her, and the man raised his eyebrows. “Sorry,” said Harry, realising she had no clue what was going on. “You need a pinch of this to throw in the fire. It’ll joined the mantle to the Floo network, so we can travel back to my parents’ house.”

   Hermione, if possible, looked even more horrified. “The fire is going to…transport us somewhere?”

   The shop assistant looked at them uncomfortably, and placed the tin carefully back on the mantelpiece. “I’ll just leave this here with you,” he said, and backed away.

   “It’s okay,” Harry assured Hermione. “You just copy me exactly. I’ll throw the powder on the flames and they’ll turn green, then step onto the coals. The fire will just tickle, and I’ll say ‘Godric’s Hollow, Potter Residence’, as clear as I can. Then it’ll spin me around really fast, and be spat out in my living room.”

   Hermione swallowed. “Alright,” she said, unsure.

   “I’ll go first, okay?” he assured her. “Just do exactly what I do.” Watching her watching him, he cast the powder into the fire. She jumped a little as the flames flared and changed from a normal shade of reddish orange to jade green. He made sure she was still looking, then stepped up and into the mantle. “Godric’s Hollow, Potter Residence,” he said, careful not to cough, and the last thing he saw was Hermione’s anxious face as he spun into the network.

Before he knew it, he was stumbling out into the living room where he’d sat with Dr Jaisun the Healer. He managed to right himself quick enough with some grace, but then he froze. He had it in his head that the room would be empty, that the Potters would be busy off doing their own thing on this Saturday night. And perhaps they were, because it wasn’t them who was sat there waiting for him.

   Parvati Patil and Seamus Finnigan were perched on the couch, and at his arrival Parvati had jumped to her feet. “Mrs P!” she screeched, wringing her hands anxiously. “He’s back!”

   Harry glanced back at the fire, aware Hermione was hopefully right behind him, then back at Seamus and Parvati. Why were they there?

   “Where have you been?” scolded Parvati, like she had some right to know, and Harry began to get an inkling he wasn’t fully up to speed on something.

   He’d had never spent much time with Parvati Patil, other than that disastrous time they had gone to the Yule Ball together. She was always glued to Lavender Brown’s side, gossiping about something or other. She looked pretty much the same as she always did; her long hair was platted down her side and secured with a large glittery butterfly fluttering its wings on the end. She wore pink make up, pink jumper, ever her trainers had a bit of pink on. She was slim, maybe a bit too slim, and she rested her right hand on her chest, the same way she always did when she was looking for a fight.

   Seamus was still sat on the couch, watching them both. Unlike Parvati, there were several things that struck Harry as being different about him right away. His sandy blonde hair was much longer than the crop he usually had, falling behind his ears and over his eyebrows. His hands were shoved into the pouch of the black hoodie he wore, his jeans were ripped at the knees, and his trainers were huge chunky things, scuffed on every surface. But it was his eyes, the shadows beneath them. This was not the same Seamus Finnigan.

   It had taken Harry only a second or to make these observations, and he glanced again at the fireplace.

   “Harry,” growled the dangerously low voice of the woman he now believed to actually be his mother. “James. _Potter.”_ She came storming into the living room from the hallway, and Harry guessed she had been upstairs. He turned to see her thunderous face, and couldn’t help but hear the steady plunking of piano keys coming from the closed room opposite. “Where on _Earth_ have you been?”

   His conversation with Hermione was swimming around in his head. This was not a trick, or some imposter. This _was_ Lily Potter, from some life that had never been, a life he could have had. He wasn’t sure what to say to her, so he looked at the fireplace again, real fear curling in his stomach. Hermione was taking too long. “Er, Terry’s,” he said absently.

   “But _we_ were just at Terry’s,” said Parvati dramatically. “And he said he’d not heard from you all day!”

“He’s grounded,” added Seamus in his Irish lilt, inclining his head towards the couch, as if explaining why he wasn’t there with them.

   Everyone was staring at Harry, waiting for an explanation, but at that moment the fire swirled up, and he spun in anticipation, not caring that his lie had fallen apart, only that Hermione was okay.

   She came flying out of the mantelpiece and straight into his arms, sending them both stumbling into the centre of the room. “Urgh!” she cried, gripping onto Harry for dear life. “That was...interesting.” She pried her eyes open, and Harry smiled at her.

   “Well done,” he whispered.

   “Harry?” He sighed, and let Hermione go, but still stood protectively by her side. Parvati looked like she had been slapped, Seamus curious, and Lily simply stunned. “Who is this?” she asked.

   Harry hadn’t had the chance to come up with an effective cover story like he had hoped, so after a moment’s hesitation, he decided to just tell the truth. A version of it at least.

   “This is Hermione Granger,” he said, taking her hand. She had clammed up under the collective glare of the room, and she nervously pulled at her hair that had become even more fly-away after her journey through the Floo network. “Hermione, this is Lily Potter, my mum.”

   “Ooh,” she said, her eyes wide with understanding.

   Lily seemed to have forgotten her anger. “And who is Hermione Granger?” she asked, bewildered.

   “She’s, um,” said Harry uncomfortably. “Well she’s a witch.”

   Lily found her anger again pretty quickly. “What?” she cried horrified, whilst Parvati’s mouth dropped open and Seamus sat up straight on the sofa.

   “No she’s not,” Parvati argued. “She was never at school.”

   Harry shook his head quickly. “No, no you’re right, she’s Muggle-born.”

   Lily stepped forward, her eyes raking over Hermione who looked terrified. “Harry are you serious?” she asked.

   But surprisingly, it was Hermione who answered, clearing her throat and finding her voice. “Yes,” she said timidly. “Harry explained everything to me.”

   Seamus finally got to his feet. “How,” he said. “How have you found a Muggle-born, they’re protected?”

   “And for a good reason,” added Lily. “Harry you have put this girl in great danger!”

   “No, it’s okay,” said Hermione hurriedly. “I wanted to know.”

   “But how, Harry?” demanded Parvati. “And why have you been lying to us?”

   He swallowed. “I’m sorry,” he said, just as an automatic reaction. He was sorry for a lot of things. “I, um, well…”

   “He read it in the news,” said Hermione suddenly. Harry slowly turned to her and held her gaze, trying to guess where she was going with this and not show his alarm. “I, um,” she continued. “I accidently exploded all the windows in my school’s science lab, and lit all the Bunsen burners, like something out of a horror movie. The local newspaper came and did a story on it. Harry realised it was uneducated magic, didn’t you?”

   She nodded eagerly at him. “Oh, yeah,” said Harry, wondering if that was really true about the paper. “I wanted to see if I could find whoever it was, maybe help.”

   “But the Ministry would have had it under control,” said Lily, looking back and forth between them both. “Harry what were you thinking?”

   “That she must have been so scared,” cried Harry honestly. “That she was all alone and it’s awful that Muggle-borns aren’t told what they really are. So I managed to track her down and I don’t care if the Ministry Obliterate us both, at least I tried to do the right thing!” He knew it was sort of a lie, but he found he really was quite indignant that the Muggle-borns were being left in the dark. What about Dean Thomas, Lavender Brown? They had no idea what they really were, and probably felt as isolated as Hermione had.

   He took a deep breath then let it back out again. Lily’s eyebrows were raised, Parvati looked dubious, but Seamus was smiling, like he was impressed. The piano music in the other room had faltered, but after a small pause the hesitant notes came once again.

   “Please don’t be angry at Harry, Mrs Potter,” said Hermione, squeezing his hand. “I can’t tell you what this means to me, to know that I’m not insane, that there’s a reason for all the terrible things that have happened to me.”

   Lily’s face finally lost its worried, hostile look. “Oh sweetheart,” she said, and wrapped her arms around her own body. “I was Muggle-born too,” she told her, and Hermione blinked in surprise. “I understand, I do, it’s just…we live in dangerous times. And with everything that happened with Harry this morning-”

   “Yeah,” jumped in Seamus, getting to his feet. “Terry said your dad was talking with his dad, that you collapsed or something?”

   “And you were talking crazy!” chipped in Parvati.

   Lily was shaking her head. “First that and now this?” she asked, her eyes flicking towards Hermione.

   Harry held up his hand, trying to deflect them. “I was just hungover,” he lied. “This has nothing to do with that, I just happened to finally get Hermione’s address today and I couldn’t wait.”

   Parvati made a little “hm!” noise at the back of her throat that Harry decided to ignore.

   “I’m so sorry I lied to you,” said Harry. “I just didn’t want you to stop me.”

   Lily sighed. “Well, it’s done now,” she said. “I’m not sure what the Ministry will do about it, but that’s their business.” She smiled. “So Harry brought you here to show you a real, dysfunctional magical family?” she joked.

Hermione gave a nervous laugh and Harry managed to relax into a bit of a smile. “Oh, he just wanted to show me some books, he didn’t say anyone would be in,” she added, shooting Harry a look which made Lily smirk.

   “Alright,” she said with a sigh. “You can stay for an hour or so, then we’ll get you home. Would you like a cup of tea?”

   Hermione was taken aback by the question. “Um, yes please, thank you,” she said.

   “Me too,” said Seamus with a grin, and Parvati elbowed him in the ribs. “What?” he said defensively, rubbing his side.

   But Lily didn’t seem to mind. “I’ll make a round,” she said, heading for the kitchen.

   That left Harry and Hermione on one side of the table, and Seamus and Parvati on the other. There was an awkward silence for a moment, and Harry decided he should probably let go of Hermione’s hand. She gave him a little smile, then folded her arms and looked uncomfortably at her shoes.

   Parvati tutted, and Seamus just seemed to be analysing Hermione. “Well?” said Parvati impatiently. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

   Harry realised she was talking to him. “Oh, right,” he said as the kettle began to whistle and Lily hummed as she rattled the tea cups onto a tray. “Hermione Granger, I’d like you to meet Parvati Patil and Seamus Finnigan.”

   Seamus offered his hand out for Hermione to shake. “We’re his housemates, at school,” he said as she took it tentatively.

   “Oh!” said Harry before he realised he’d spoken out loud. The other three looked at him strangely, but he waved them off. “Sorry, nothing,” he said. Except it wasn’t nothing, he had worked out why Parvati and Seamus were here, why they were friends. If Ron and Neville were really dead like Sarah had said, and the school wasn’t accepting Muggle-borns, then he, Seamus and Parvati would be the only ones left in their year of Gryffindor. They were probably friends by default. The rest of their year would have been much smaller too, so no wonder they were also friends with a Ravenclaw like Terry Boot. The four houses probably took all their lessons together.

   Whilst Harry had been processing all this, Parvati had dashed around the low coffee table and thrown her arms around an unsuspecting Hermione. “Nice to meet you,” she said cheerily. “It’ll be _so_ nice to have a girl to hang out with for a change!”

   She beamed at Hermione, who managed a shaky smile back. “Sure,” she said hesitantly.

   At the same moment, the door bell rang, and the kettle clicked to show it was boiled. “Oh Harry get that,” called Lily from out of sight. “Your dad probably forgot his keys.” She poked her head back round, and glanced from Harry to the door. “You got back before I had a chance to message him,” she said wearily. “Perhaps…let me do the talking?”

   Harry nodded, glad she wasn’t angry at him anymore. He was still uneasy about lying to her, but he reasoned the situation was too complicated for anything else as he crossed the living room and into the hall.

   Lily’s voice rang out again. “Tell him I’ve popped out for milk,” she said. “I’ll just apparate in the garden, won’t be long!”

   “Okay,” Harry called back, then addressed the door. “Coming,” he told them as they knocked again and he took the chance to shrug his coat off and hang it on the rack. Now he knew this actually was James Potter, his father from another reality, he was excited to see his again, to get the chance to get to know him.

   But as he opened the front door, he guessed the universe had decided things weren’t quite complicated enough after all.

   Because Draco Malfoy was standing on the other side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun DUN! Yep, our favourite Slytherin is back ladies and gents, what do you think he wants?


	4. No Light No Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So are you going to let me in or not?” Draco Malfoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hold on to your seats folks, the ride's about to get bumpy...

Chapter Three -

   No Light No Light

 

Through the crowd, I was crying out

And in your place there were a thousand other faces

I was disappearing in plain sight

Heaven help me, I need to make it right

 

You want a revelation

You wanna get right

But that’s a conversation

I just can't have tonight

You want a revelation

Some kind of resolution

You want a revelation

 

No light, no light in your bright blue eyes

I never knew daylight could be so violent

A revelation in the light of day

You can't choose what stays and what fades away

Florence + The Machine

 

   Harry stared from Draco Malfoy, to his companions in the lounge, then back at Draco Malfoy. “Okay,” he said, a hint of hysteria setting in. “Are we friends?”

   “Potter,” said Malfoy, glancing anxiously around the dimly lit porch. “Please – let me in.” He was filthy, which Harry hadn’t thought he was capable of being. But there he was, hair dishevelled and skin covered in grime. He clung defensively to the strap of a threadbare satchel slung around his neck.

   “No, seriously,” Harry tried again. “Because the day I’m having I honestly couldn’t guess either way.”

   Malfoy had one foot on the step and one still on the gravel, his body angled like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to run away or not. “Please,” he said again, his grey eyes wide with apprehension. “Please, I need to talk to you.” He ran a hand through his matted hair, rocking between the step and the pathway. “I realise I have no right to ask, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important. But I need your help.”

   Harry looked down at the boy he had always considered his enemy, and thought about how when they’d last spoken in his own world, it had resulted it Malfoy’s broken nose. How he’d gloated about Sirius’ arrest, delighted in Harry’s despair. This Malfoy – this alternate version if Hermione was right – did not have that arrogance pulsating off him. There was hollowness to his eyes, a tension visible in his whole body.

   “Um,” said Harry, glancing back to the living room and thinking of Hermione, considering how altered her life was here. What differences could have lead to Draco Malfoy coming to his home, asking for his help in this tattered state? Malfoy looked anxiously over his shoulder again, his hands gripping onto the fraying satchel strap. Harry had no way to know where his loyalties lay in this world; they were dark enough in the life Harry knew. “I don’t know,” he said. As far as he’d experienced today, nothing was what it should have been. But it just seemed a step too far to trust Draco Malfoy.

   The blond boy on the step wavered back and forth. “I can’t,” he stammered, then he took a deep breath in. “If you don’t help me, hundreds of lives will be at risk.” He straightened his spine, and lifted his bottom foot to stand fully on the step. “I know that might sound crazy, but I didn’t travel all this way for a ‘no’.”

   This was more like the Malfoy Harry knew, but his words were still contradictory. “Hundreds of lives?” Harry repeated.

   “Probably more,” said Malfoy. His tone was serious. He was still fretting with the bag strap, but he was staring down Harry defiantly. “So are you going to let me in or not?”

   After all the surprises Harry had experienced today, he had to admit he was curious as to what Malfoy was talking about. Since he had woken up, he had tried to convince himself everything he was experiencing was some sort of trick, but Hermione’s theory about parallel universes had shaken him through and through. If this was a real world, a reality that ran alongside his own, those lives would be just as real as anybody he knew in is actual life. Surely that was worth hearing Malfoy out for, even if his gut instinct was screaming to tell him to leave.

   Harry reached over to his coat, and got his wand out from the pocket. “Alright,” he said cautiously. “I’ll let you in. But nothing funny, you understand?”

   Malfoy looked from his face, to his wand and back again. “Okay,” he said, with a nod. Harry stepped back, and the two boys watched each other like hawks as Malfoy crossed the threshold and into the Potters’ house.

   “What now?” asked Harry as the door swung back, shutting out the cold November air. Now he was in the light, Harry could see just what a state Malfoy was truly in. He was covered in cuts and bruises, his clothes were ragged and torn, the shadows under his eyes were practically purple and his fingernails were caked in dirt. “Crikey, what happened to you?”

   Malfoy looked totally thrown by the question. “There’s not much time,” he said instead. He was having trouble keeping his eyes on Harry and kept flicking them away. “I, um…” He glanced up in surprise as the piano playing started up again from behind the door to their right. “Who else is here?” he asked. “Can we talk somewhere in private?”

   It had been enough to let Malfoy inside the house, Harry wasn’t keen on taking him any further unless he had to. “Here’s just fine,” he said. “There’s quite a few people here as it turns out.”

   As if on cue, Parvati Patil’s voice piped up. “Harry, who is that?” she demanded. Malfoy jerked like he’d had an electric shock, and he turned to Harry.

   “Who else is here?” he hissed again.

   Harry could see Parvati as she stomped around where Hermione was standing towards the hall, but Malfoy had remained hidden from their view. He guessed he was about to find out whether the two of them were really friends or not.

   Parvati had her hands on her hips as she sauntered out, but it took less than a second for her to clock Malfoy. She gasped and tripped backwards, hands flying over her mouth before she snatched her own wand out, aiming it into Malfoy’s face. “Get OUT!” she screeched, bringing Seamus running, his own wand raised.

   He stopped short at the sight of Malfoy, who had backed away in horror upon seeing Parvati. _“You,”_ snarled Seamus, and launched for Malfoy, seizing him by the lapels and slamming him into the front door.

   Definitely not friends then.

   Harry expected Malfoy to swing for him, but he just held his hands up. “I just came to talk to Potter, Finnigan, I swear!”

“What?” spluttered Parvati, dancing on her toes as Hermione peered out from the living room in shock. “What could you possibly have to talk to him about!”

   The door opposite the living room creaked open, and Sarah Potter poked her head through the gap. “What’s all the racket?” she asked, looking at Seamus and Malfoy with an open mouth.

   “Hang on,” said Harry, holding up his hands. “Everyone just calm down. Sarah…” she raised her eyebrows at him, but his instinct told him to keep Malfoy away from her. “Maybe you should go back to the piano?”

   “But I’ve done it all,” she protested, excitement and intrigue clear on her face. But Harry already felt very protective over her, this miracle sister he never thought possible. Even if that meant being a spoil-sport.

   “Then, do it all again,” he said, hoping he sounded firm enough. Sarah huffed and rolled her eyes, but obligingly banged the door shut and stomped audibly away. Within a second an aggressive version of _Au Clair De La Lune_ began punctuating the air.

   “Right,” said Harry, addressing the people in the hallway. Hermione had remained in the lounge, unsure, and he couldn’t blame her. This was not what he’d had in mind when he’d asked her to come back to his house. “Malfoy, let’s start with what you are doing here?”

   “Don’t call me Malfoy,” he snapped in response. “And I’m not saying anything until Finnigan lets go of me.”

   “I can let go of you outside?” said Seamus accommodatingly. “Or I’m sure there’s a nice ravine or cliff side somewhere near here-”

   Harry waved his hands. “Seamus, just let him go,” he said, much to the Irish boy’s surprise. “I don’t know why he’s here, but he said it was important, and I don’t think shaking it out of him’s the way to go about it.”

   Seamus ran his gaze up and down Malfoy, then flicked his shirt out from his grasp. “Fine,” he said. “Talk.”

   Malfoy swallowed. “Not to you, just Harry. It’s important.”

   “Oh, yeah,” scoffed Parvati. “I’m sure you have a very important little mission to kill us all.”

   “You weren’t supposed to be here!” retaliated Malfoy, raising his voice for the first time. “I was only supposed to speak to Potter, this doesn’t concern you!”

   “If it concerns Harry,” said Seamus coldly, shoving Malfoy back into the door again. “It concerns us.”

   “Hey, hey,” said Harry, making Seamus turn and look. “I know it’s Malfoy, but let’s not beat him up just yet, hey? At least until we hear what he has to say?”

   “Harry, you can’t be serious?” asked Parvati. “”You can’t believe one word that traitor has to say, you should kick him out right now!”

   The word traitor made Harry pause, and he glanced at Malfoy who was still bunched up against the front door, his jaw and fists clenched.

“If I’m honest,” he said tiredly. “This day has been one bizarre event after another. So I am willing to entertain Malfoy for five minutes if he wants to talk about something he says is urgent. Now how about we just all calm down and go back into the living room?”

   Seamus and Parvati glanced at each other, then at Harry. “Are you sure?” Seamus asked.

   Truthfully, Harry wasn’t sure about anything, and every minute speaking with Malfoy was a minute taken away from investigating Hermione’s parallel dimension theory. But he was so earnest and insistent Harry couldn’t help but be intrigued. He had never seen his Malfoy like this before.

   He just hoped it wouldn’t come back to bite him.

   “Yeah,” said Harry. “We’ll give him five minutes, not a second more.”

   Parvati went to protest, but Harry’s conviction must have shown on his face. “Fine,” she said, begrudgingly, but did not lower her wand.

   “Okay,” mocked Seamus, stepping out of Malfoy’s way and extending his arm out to the living room. “Be our guest,” he said with a little bow. “I promise not to touch you whilst Harry says not to.” Malfoy flicked his narrowed eyes at him, but said nothing as he moved cautiously into the lounge. Seamus leant over to Harry. “The second,” he whispered. “You say it’s okay, I’ll knock his bleeding lights out.” He patted Harry on the back and followed Malfoy in.  

   “Thanks?” he said, raising his eyebrows before following. Parvati waited until he’d gone through, keeping the most possible distance between herself and the blond Slytherin boy.

   Hermione had backed up by the fireplace, and Malfoy was stood, staring at her. “Do I know you?” he asked, his voice hoarse. Again, it was lacking the usual hostility Harry had come to expect.

   “No,” said Hermione. “I mean, I don’t think so?”

   “She’s my friend,” said Harry, stepping in between them both. “That’s all you need to know. Now what did you want to talk about?”

   “Uh,” said Draco, his gaze moving between the other three in the room. “I really think we should talk in private?”

   “Tough,” said Seamus with a tight smile as he perched on the sofa arm. Parvati had curled herself on the cushions beside him, biting her thumbnail. “You’ve now got four minutes.”

   Malfoy seemed to want to argue back, but he changed his mind. “Okay,” he said. “Whatever. But this is classified information I’m about to tell you, I’m only offering plausible deniability.”

   Harry wasn’t the only one taken aback by that. “What are you talking about?” he asked.

   “I, um,” Malfoy said, and then he appeared to stagger a little where he stood. “I couldn’t get a glass of water could I?”

   Harry didn’t know what to say to that, but Parvati did. “No you may not!” she snapped, scrambling to her feet. “What do you think this is, the Ritz? You tell us what you have to say and then you _leave.”_

   “Sorry,” mumbled Malfoy, and Harry couldn’t quite believe he’d heard him properly. Had he just _apologised?_

   “I’ll get it,” said Hermione, and everyone looked at her.

   “What?” asked Seamus.

   “A glass of water,” said Hermione. “For him. He looks half dead.”

   Seamus spluttered. “Okay,” he said. “I know you’re new to all of this, but we don’t get Death Eaters glasses of water. We get them the hell out of our homes before they kill everyone.”

   “I’m not a Death Eater,” said Malfoy quietly. “Not anymore.”

   “Oh sure you are,” said Seamus, pretending to be cheerful. He crossed over the room and reached for Malfoy. “It says so right here on your arm.” Malfoy snatched away from Seamus as if he’d been scalded.

   “Don’t you _touch_ me!” he cried, gripping his right wrist, presumably where his Dark Mark tattoo was. Harry wasn’t sure if he was surprised or not that in this reality Malfoy had already become a fully fledged member of Voldemort’s army. “I said not _anymore!”_

   “What, so that makes it okay?” cried Parvati. “You, what, reformed? So now you want to come make friends with Harry?”

   “Here you go.” Harry hadn’t realised, but Hermione had slipped behind him and got Malfoy a glass of water anyway. He looked at her and the tumbler dubiously, and she shifted uncomfortably. “Look, Harry and I have something really important to be getting on with. Here’s your water, so you can talk, and then you can go.” She glanced at Seamus and Parvati. “I think that would be best for everyone, don’t you?”

   Malfoy was still looking uncertain, but his eyes had lit up at the water like he was dying of thirst, and after a moment he reached out slowly and accepted the glass from Hermione’s hand. Tentatively, he took a sip, then began gulping it down as fast as he could. “Thank you,” he breathed once it was all gone, and wiped his face with the back of his hand. He then looked down at the glass, unsure what to do with it.

   “You’re welcome,” said Hermione, leaning over and plucking it from his hand.

   He narrowed his eyes at her. “Are you sure I don’t know you?” he asked. “What’s your name?”

   “Hermione Granger,” she said with a smile, placing the tumbler on a coaster on the coffee table.

   Malfoy blinked in surprise. “The Mudblood?” he said. It just popped out of his mouth, he didn’t even seem to realise what he’d said.

   Seamus did though. His fist moved like lightning, slamming into Malfoy’s face in the blink of an eye, showering blood all down him. “Don’t you EVER!” he roared as Hermione screamed and stumbled backwards, covering her mouth with her hands. “Use that WORD!”

   The piano faltered, and Harry glanced over at the closed door hoping Sarah would have the sense to stay put. She did. “Whoa, whoa,” he cried, pulling Seamus away from Malfoy, as he looked like he might punch him again, and Malfoy was already bleeding quite heavily onto the Potters’ carpet. “That’s enough.”

   Parvati took Hermione by the shoulders. “Are you alright?” she asked, searching her face.

   “You’re going to stand for that?” demanded Seamus to Harry, breathing heavily through his mouth. He thrust his finger at Malfoy, who was pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking from the shock.

   “No,” said Harry, trying to keep his voice calm. “But I don’t want the house trashed either. Malfoy, you use that word again, and I will punch you myself. But for now.” He rolled his eyes and got out his wand. _“Episkey.”_ The bleeding stopped immediately, and Malfoy looked at him in confusion.

   “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think.”

   “What just happened?” asked Hermione aghast.

   Parvati gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Oh, you wouldn’t know!” she said sympathetically. “That’s a really horrible word for someone who’s Muggle-born.”

   “I was just surprised,” protested Malfoy. “That’s what they call them, I just.” He let go of his nose, and looked at her. “What is she _doing_ here? I mean you two I can understand-”

   “Enough,” said Harry as Seamus flexed and curled his no-doubt throbbing hand. “You have one minute left, and you haven’t told us anything. Why are you here and what do you want?”

   Malfoy’s chest was rising up and down visibly. He blinked several times and rubbed his face, getting most of the blood off. His skin was so dirty though it didn’t actually stand out all that much. He glanced at Hermione, then stuck his gaze on Harry. “We need your help,” he said again.

   “I’m sorry,” said Parvati, letting go of Hermione. “But did you just ask for our _help?”_

   “Not you, Harry,” snapped Malfoy.

   “After everything you did,” said Seamus, shaking his head and practically vibrating with rage.

   “You turn up here,” shrieked Parvati. “Unannounced, starting fights, insulting this poor girl.” She grabbed Hermione again and shook her, much to Hermione’s disquiet. “After what you _did-”_

   “I know what I did,” flared Malfoy, clenching his fists by his side. But then he softened. “I know. And I can’t ever undo it. But he is out of control and there are people who have had enough, people who want to stop him.”

   “Who?” asked Harry. “Vol-”

   Before Harry could remember to stop himself there were three very loud voices screaming at him to shut up. He stepped back, waving his hands. “Sorry, sorry,” he told them. Parvati in particular looked like she might faint. “Okay, so you mean You-Know-Who, he’s the one out of control.”

   “Who else?” said Malfoy.

   Harry didn’t want to admit that when it came to this reality, he really wouldn’t have bet on anyone at this stage. Instead he locked eyes briefly with Hermione, then looked back to Malfoy.

   “Define out of control?” he said, hoping that was a vague enough question. Apart from Sarah telling him Voldemort was still alive and had attacked the school, he wasn’t quite sure what the situation was. From his parents’ over-protective behaviour he guessed not great.

   “The killings you know about,” said Malfoy, his voice tight. “People from the Ministry, whole families.”

   “The school,” interjected Seamus with a scowl.  

   Malfoy just swallowed, then looked back to Harry. There was obviously something going on between the three of them, but Harry felt like he couldn’t ask without blowing the fact that he wasn’t really their Harry, and that would give him too many problems to deal with right now.

   “The Muggle attacks have increased too,” Malfoy continued. “That bridge in Bristol, the football game.” He closed his eyes. “That orphanage.”

   “That was You-Know-Who?” cried Parvati in horror. “They said it was a gas explosion?”

   “Well it wasn’t,” said Malfoy. “It was him, something personal they said, like he went there.”

   “All those children,” said Seamus grimly.

   “And it’s just getting worse,” insisted Malfoy. “We think there’s going to be all out war, that he’s going to rise up against the Muggles and anyone that tries to stop him, take Britain for himself.” He shook his head. “Anyone who tries to talk sense into him is just…he just…”

   Malfoy clamped his jaw down and stared at the floor.

   “So,” said Seamus scathingly. “You are still a Death Eater, if you know all that?”

   “Not anymore,” said Malfoy firmly. “I can promise you that.”

   “Oh, well,” cried Parvati and throwing her hands in the air. “That’s a relief, I guess we can all rest easy knowing you’ve _promised_ us you’re not lying!”

   “I was with them three weeks ago,” said Malfoy, his eyes still on the floor. “But only because I had to be. Now there’s something happening, something big and Harry can help us.”

   “Help how?” asked Harry. “And who’s us?”

   The back door slammed, making everyone jump, especially Malfoy who looked like his heart was in danger of stopping. “I’m back!” Lily Potter called out happily. “I had to walk into the village, didn’t want Mrs Jones spotting me apparating like last time.”

   Harry’s head snapped back to look at Malfoy, then towards the kitchen entrance just in time to see Lily walk through.

   She could only have taken a second to register who their latest visitor was. But her face dropped and her wand was out in a flash. “What is he doing here?” she hissed and Malfoy raised his hands defensively.

   “He said he wanted to talk to Harry,” said Parvati indignantly. “That he wants his _help!_ But he won’t elaborate on any of the details!”

   “I’m trying,” said Malfoy breathlessly.

   “You leave my house _right now,”_ snarled Lily, advancing into the living room, her wand trained on Malfoy’s chest.

   “No, please, you don’t understand,” said Malfoy, backing into the corner of the room. “Harry’s the key to it all, that’s what they said. He needs to come with me so he can stop You-Know-Who.”

   “Harry?” spluttered Parvati. “How can Harry do anything against You-Know-Who?” Harry found that statement odd, but he guessed in this reality, he never _had_ done anything against Voldemort.

   “What are you talking about?” Lily asked as she came to a halt in the middle of the room. “He’s just a child?” She shook her head. “And you’re a Death Eater, you’re Malfoy’s son, you’re in the Dark Lord’s inner circle?”

   “My father,” said Malfoy through his teeth. “That’s my father, not me. I want him gone, I’ll do anything. That’s why I’m here.”

   There was a few moments of tension where everyone just stared at Malfoy, and he stared back at Lily and her wand. “So, what?” she said, the milk still dangling from her other hand. “You just…” she let her eyes flick up and down the blond boy. “Walked here?”

   “Seemed the safest way,” said Malfoy. “No magic, harder to trace, and I had protection spells put on me, to mask my location.”

   Lily’s expression was calculating. “So you’re saying no one knows you’re here?”

   “A couple of people,” admitted Malfoy evenly. “The ones who sent me, they’re one our side.”

   “There is no ‘our side’,” spat Seamus venomously.

   “Who,” demanded Lily. “Who sent you, and why? What on Earth can Harry have to do with this?”

   Malfoy gave a little frown. “Well, he’s the key?” he said. “You know about the prophecy, right?”

   Lily’s whole body tensed. “No one knows what the prophecy said,” she told him, her voice low. “That’s why we went into hiding, why we’ve been protected all these years.”

   Harry’s stomach flipped. “That was because of a prophecy?” That was news to his ears.

   Lily went to say something, then shook her head at him. “How do you know about it?” she asked Malfoy. “What does that have to do with anything?”

   Malfoy was sweating, beads pricking on his dirty neck and forehead. “All I know,” he said as calmly as he could. “Is that something’s happened. Right now, there’s something going on and Harry can do something to stop it, stop You-Know-Who.”

   “How?” demanded Parvati again. “He’s just a kid.”

   Malfoy shook his head. “I just had to get here, by Saturday night, and bring Harry back with me. That’s all they told me.” He glanced meaningfully at Harry. “Plausible deniability.”

   The front door banged, and everyone stood in the living room jumped for a second time, including Lily who dropped her bottle of milk. “And then I said!” came the voice of James Potter. “Try it again, and _then_ we’ll see who’s laughing!” He was obviously with people, and Harry barely had time to process who before they came tumbling into the living room, cavorting and peeling coats off.

   He felt like his whole world had reduced to just that moment. As there, by his dad’s side, was none other than Sirius Black.

   All that emotion, all that anguish he’d felt knowing his godfather had been recaptured, was most likely going to be subjected to Dementor’s Kiss, it flew over him again so fast it made him dizzy.

   The two of them came to a halt under the archway leading from the hallway into the lounge, and paused, their smiles fading as they took in the scene before them. James looked like he had at dinner, but Sirius…well Harry was shocked. The Sirius he knew had been on the run for the last couple of years, and had spent a decade in Azkaban before that; he was gaunt, malnourished with yellow bitten fingernails and tangled shoulder-length hair. This man was a fuller, muscular build, with clear skin and a crop of healthy hair that shone under the lights. Harry had seen so many photos of him and James stood side by side like that in their youth, it instantly brought a lump to his throat to witness it for himself.

   Was his own Sirius okay? he couldn’t help but fret. He had just abandoned him in their world, what had happened to him whilst Harry had been here? He didn’t have time to dwell though, everything was happening so fast.

   “What’s going on?” said James, frowning as he took in all the teenagers and Lily, her wand raised, the milk pooling on the carpet by her feet.

   “Huh?” came another voice, and the familiar face of Remus Lupin also came into view. Harry’s old teacher also looked far healthier in this reality, the shadows under his eyes were gone and there was less grey in his hair.

“Sirius,” said Harry dumbfounded. “Remus.” He could see Hermione give him a meaningful glance, obviously having remembered their names from Harry’s account of his life in her bedroom, as she turned back and studied the two men. It wasn’t necessary to tell her who his dad was, the resemblance was uncanny.

   “You alright mate?” asked Sirius as James turned to Lily expectantly. But Remus beat him to any question he might have asked.

   “Hey,” he said as he stood next to James. “That’s Draco Malfoy?” He pulled his wand out in a flash, and like Lily, pointed it at Harry’s school nemesis.

   “Lucius’ son?” cried James, and both he and Sirius followed suit, grabbing their wands out and aiming them at Malfoy.

   “Wait!” cried the blond boy again. “You don’t understand!”

   “Draco Malfoy?”

   It was a fourth voice, from the hallway, and Harry froze. He may have thought his world had reduced at the sight of Sirius alive and well, but it was nothing compared to the icy clarity that came from hearing the man who was still hidden from view.

   He sounded stunned from the squeaky tone of him, and then he stumbled into sight behind the three taller men, struggling to unwrap the oversized scarf from around his head. All that could be seen was small and chubby, dressed in corduroys and a brown leather jacket, he even looked rat-like in his human form.

   But Harry didn’t need to see his face, he could tell who the fourth man was, who he inevitably had to be. He finally broke free of the scarf, what was left of his wispy hair standing on end with static, and he hurriedly pushed between James and Sirius, his eyes wide on Draco Malfoy.

   Harry felt his whole world crumble.

   The forth man was Peter Pettigrew.

 

***

 

   Harry didn’t even know what he was doing. The moment seemed to stretch on forever, and then in a flash his feet were scrabbling against the carpet, not moving fast enough for him to close the gap and lunge for the man who had betrayed his entire family.

   He let out an animalistic snarl as the two collided and his fist landed square on Wormtail’s face, crashing them to the floor as everyone around them screamed and bellowed.

   “Harry _Potter!”_ shouted his dad, grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and hauling him off. “Have you lost your _mind?”_

   Harry stumbled backwards, his breathing fast and shallow as his eyes found Hermione. “It’s him,” he breathed. “It’s Wormtail.”

   Hermione’s face dropped in horror, and she darted to Harry’s side. Seamus and Parvati were looking at them stunned as James and Sirius helped Wormtail to his feet, blood and tears running down his face.

   “Harry,” he bemoaned. “I think you broke my nose!” His voice was thick with congestion and blood was running into his mouth.

   Lily was still pointing her wand at Malfoy, but her expression was bewildered. “Harry what were you thinking?” she asked.

   Harry looked at Hermione, who understood the implications of Pettigrew’s being there just as well as he did it seemed, but Harry doubted her heart was racing quite like his. She hadn’t had a lifetime of bereavement, years of knowing the wrong man had been punished for his family’s death, that someone they had considered a friend had betrayed them to save his own skin.

   But was it the same? So much else was different in this world; if Pettigrew was still here, and his family still alive, could he still be a Death Eater, spying his unsuspecting friends for Voldemort?

   The direction of Lily’s wand lead Harry to turn and look at Malfoy, the other potential Death Eater in the room. He hoped maybe he would have a reaction to Wormtail that might give him a clue as to both of their loyalties, but to his surprise Malfoy was staring right at Harry. “You know,” he breathed in disbelief, glancing at Wormtail. “Don’t you?” He studied Harry and then Hermione meaningfully. _“How_ do you know?”

   “Know what?” asked Lily.

   “Don’t believe a single word that boy tells you!” shrieked Wormtail at Harry as Remus fixed his nose. “He’s a Malfoy, you know they only lie!”

   “He hasn’t told me anything yet,” growled Harry. What did Malfoy think he knew? Was he telling him what he suspected, that Wormtail was with Voldemort?

   “He just keeps saying he wants Harry to come with him,” piped up Parvati in a bossy tone, apparently pleased to have some information amidst all the commotion. “That Harry can stop You-Know-Who or something ludicrous.”

   The expression of shock, no matter how fleeting, was undeniable on Wormtail’s face as his head snapped towards Malfoy. “Well, that’s absurd,” he stuttered. “What would Harry have to do with anything?”

   Malfoy was shaking his head. “Don’t,” he spat through clenched teeth. “Don’t you dare just stand there, don’t you talk like that-”

   “Hey!” shouted James, raising his hands. “Everybody stop, right now. We are going to answer some questions, starting with why Lucius Malfoy’s son is in my living room of all places.”

   “No we’re not,” breathed Harry. Everybody became quite still. His vision was boring into Wormtail’s fixed but still bloody face, but he could tell all eyes were on him. He was shaking he was so full of adrenalin, his fury bubbling under his skin.

   “I’m sorry, what?” said James, not angry, just confused.

   “We are going to ask Malfoy,” said Harry, choosing every word with great care. “Just how well he knows our friend Wormtail here.”

   Wormtail let out a funny little squeak. “Why would I know Lucius’ boy?” he said. He was trying to be calm, but he kept touching his nose where Harry had hit him and blinking too frequently. “Never met him before in my life, no idea why he’s here.”

   “Harry,” said Lily, looking between the boy she thought was her son, and the man she thought was her friend. “What are you talking about. Peter doesn’t know Draco.”

   Harry turned back to Malfoy, who strangely looked like Harry felt. Incensed, his whole body vibrating and his glare directed straight at Wormtail. “Do you know him?” Harry asked, speaking earnestly to Malfoy for the first time in his life. “Is he who I think he is?”

   Several people spoke at once.

   “Of course he doesn’t know me!” squawked Wormtail.

   “What has he told you?” demanded Sirius.

   “Who do you think he is, Harry?” asked James with concern.

   Harry tried to steady his breathing, but it was hard. “I think he’s a traitor,” he said.

   Everyone in the room apart from Malfoy, Hermione and himself exploded in indignation. Roaring, shouting and waving arms. But Harry didn’t budge, he just watched the look of fear creep onto Wormtail’s face.

   There was no doubt.

   Harry could feel the tears pooling in his eyes for the second time that night, and he sagged a couple of steps towards Hermione, who put her hands on his left arm and shoulder.

   “Harry that is an _unforgivable_ thing to say!” bellowed James, livid beyond reason. “Peter is one of my oldest friends!”

   “That’s what Sirius thought too,” Harry said, knowing he wasn’t going to make any sense. “That’s why he trusted him, why they switched. But here…here you didn’t did you?” he addressed his godfather.

   Sirius was all flustered, his chest puffed out and his breathing fast, but Harry’s question threw him and he calmed down a bit. “Didn’t what?” he asked.

   Harry shared a glance with Hermione, who looked wrought with tension. “That’s what’s different,” he told her, and she nodded. “The one change, between the two worlds.”

   “What?” said Sirius.

   Harry turned back to him, to his dad. “When I was a baby, you knew you were in danger, so you got a Secret Keeper, didn’t you?”

   “Harry,” said Lily urgently. “How do you know that?”

   “You asked Sirius,” Harry continued, ignoring her and turning to his godfather. “And you said yes. But what if you’d offered to switch, to let everyone think it was you, but really it was _him.”_ The last word came out as a snarl as he turned on Wormtail.

   “But I didn’t,” said Sirius in confusion, looking at James and Remus for help. “I mean, I considered it-”

   _“And you saved our LIVES!”_ yelled Harry in anguish. “If you had chosen Wormtail he would have handed us to You-Know-Who and you would have both DIED!”

   “No!” cried Wormtail as Lily gasped. James, Sirius and Remus were standing shoulder to shoulder, all frowning in confusion at Harry. Parvati’s mouth had gotten stuck in a permanent ‘O’ shape, and she had grabbed hold of Seamus’ hand as the two of them watched the carnage unfold.

   “No,” said Wormtail again, shaking his head, sweat running down his neck. “No, Harry, listen to me. I don’t know what that Malfoy boy has told you-”

   “I haven’t told him anything!” yelled Malfoy, moving stiff legged to Harry’s side. “Don’t you stand there, don’t you lie to them you piece of dirt! I know, I _know.”_

   _“You’re_ the traitor,” countered Wormtail, jabbing his pudgy finger at Malfoy. “You and your father, we all know what you did! Don’t you try and turn this around on me!”

   “Peter’s right,” argued Lily. “Why would we listen to you over him!”

   “Then listen to me,” said Harry. He could feel his face was wet, and he kept clenching and unclenching his fists. “I am telling you that this man is loyal to You-Know-Who.”

   “Why?” snapped James, shaking his head. “Tell me Harry, why tonight have you decided that my friend is a Death Eater!”

   “Ask him,” said Malfoy, pointing his own shuddering finger. “Ask him how they found Arabella Figg, the Clearwaters?”

   Harry’s stomach dropped. They were dead too?

   “I don’t know anything about that!” cried Wormtail.

   “You’re lying,” countered James. “That’s insane.”

   The meekness Malfoy had been displaying when he’d entered the house had evaporated, replaced a righteous indignation that practically radiated off of him. “What reason would I have to lie?” he asked.

   “We don’t even know why you’re here!” shouted Sirius. “You’re the enemy! We should just take you straight to the Ministry!”

   “You _cannot,”_ said Malfoy, pointing his finger to emphasis the word. “Let that man leave this house. Do you understand me?”

   “I’ve had enough of this,” said James, shaking his head. “Malfoy, you’re coming with me.”

   “No!” said Harry and Malfoy together. The moment might have stunned Harry if there hadn’t been more going on. “Look I don’t know why he’s here,” Harry continued in his next breath as James’ expression darkened. “But he’s right, if Wormtail leaves, we’ll all be in danger.”

   “Harry,” said Lily. “Listen to what you’re saying! Peter can’t be some sort of spy, he’s been our friend for years. If what you’re saying had any truth to it, he could have given us up at any time.”

   “No,” argued Malfoy. “No he couldn’t, because the Secret Keeper is still in place.” He jutted his chin at Sirius. “And you’re protected yourself aren’t you? So he’s just been giving You-Know-Who what he can, drip feeding him enough to save his own skin.”

   “Lies!” whined Wormtail.

   “If that’s true,” said Remus, piping up for the first time. “How did you get here Draco?”

   Malfoy threw out his hands in exasperation. “Severus Snape,” he said. “You know he’s in there, undercover. He was able to guess a rough location with information from Dumbledore or something, then I’ve been walking around for _three weeks_ just hoping to get lucky!”

   “To what end?” asked Lily. “Why are you here, why are you accusing Peter like this?”

   “Is it some twisted ploy?” demanded Sirius.

   “I didn’t accuse him!” shouted Malfoy, shaking his head and thrusting his finger at Harry. “He did! Don’t ask me how he knew, but he’s right!”

   “I don’t have to listen to this,” said Wormtail indignantly, and moved backwards, towards the hallway. “James, I’ll come back when your son has calmed down.”

   _“Don’t,”_ snarled Harry, snatching his wand and pointing it at Wormtail’s back. “Even _think_ about it!”

   “Harry lower your wand,” said Lily, her voice cold. “I don’t know what this is about-”

   “It’s about saving your _lives!”_ he interrupted her. “Why won’t you listen to me!”

Wormtail had slowly turned back around, but frustratingly Sirius had stepped in between the two of them, so Harry couldn’t get a clean shot.

   “Are you really going to fight us mate?” asked Sirius disbelievingly. Seamus and Parvati were still watching on the whole scene, mute and stunned. “Come on Harry,” Sirius continued. “What’s this about? You’ve known us your whole life?”

   Harry tightened his grip on the wand in his hand, feeling light-headed and trying to keep hold of what he knew to be true. “It’s complicated,” he said, glancing at Hermione. “But I’m telling you the truth. If you let Wormtail go now his cover is blown, they will find a way around the Secret Keeper protection and they will kill us all, just like You-Know-Who wanted all along.”

   “Oh it’s _complicated,”_ griped Wormtail from behind Sirius. “James said you were acting funny today, I think he’s been compromised!” He gestured to James. “You need to get his head checked!”

   “We already had a Healer look at him,” said Lily. Her tone was almost defensive of Harry, but her wand was still up and her face still scowling. “He said there’d been no foul play.”

   “Then why,” cried Wormtail in indignation. “Is he standing there, spouting hateful nonsense with some Death Eater and a Muggle-born!”

   His face was red and he was breathing hard and heavy through his nose. Nobody said anything for a moment, but there was a change in the atmosphere, a tangible taste of confusion in the air. Harry felt Hermione grip harder onto his shoulder, and Malfoy actually gave him a look of solidarity, excitement altering his features.

   “How,” said Lily slowly. “Did you know the girl was Muggle-born Peter?”

   Wormtail’s face dropped, and Remus, who had been watching on in contemplation for most of the drama folded his arms. “Is she?” he asked.

   Wormtail spluttered. “Well, I mean she’s not a normal witch, is just what I meant. She’s not one of Harry’s friends, I just assumed.”

   “But she could have been from another school house, someone you’ve not met before,” countered Lily. “What would lead you to guess she’s Muggle-born? That’s pretty far-fetched.”

   “Lily,” said James, his brow creased. “What are you saying?”

   Harry’s heart was in his throat. Was his mum coming round?

   “Harry wasn’t at Terry’s,” Lily informed them. “He was going to see this girl. She is Muggle-born, Harry said he saw her on the news so went to find her.”

   “Why?” asked Sirius.

   “That doesn’t matter right now,” replied Harry firmly. “She is a Muggle-born; Malfoy said he knew her too, by reputation from the Death Eaters.”

   “They taught us,” Malfoy chimed in bitterly. “So we’d know the enemy. But you know all that already don’t you, Wormtail?”

   “Stop it!” squawked Pettigrew, still cowering behind Sirius. “You don’t know me! I don’t know why you’re here but you’re just lying and Harry should know better than to listen to it!”

   “There can only be a few dozen Muggle-born children around Harry’s age in the whole country,” said Lily. Her attention was on Wormtail fully now, her eyebrows knotted. “How could you have known what she was?”

   “Lily,” said James sternly. “You’re obsessing over a slip of the tongue! It’s the Malfoy boy we need to be worrying about, we need to get him to the Ministry.”

   But Lily didn’t say anything, she just kept looking at Wormtail. 

   “Lily,” said James, horror creeping into his voice. “You’re not seriously listening to this are you?”

   “It just doesn’t make sense,” she said looking stricken.

   “It makes perfect sense,” said Remus quietly, much to the abhorrence of the other Marauders.  

   “Moony!” shouted James as Sirius bristled and Wormtail paled.

   “No,” he whimpered, shaking his head at Remus. “No, Moony, how could you say that?”

   “The Weasleys,” he said simply. He looked heart-broken, and Harry glanced at his mum to see if she might be able to give him a clue what Remus was talking about, but she looked just as confused.

   “Oh,” said Malfoy however softly from his side. “Oh yeah.”

   “What about them?” demanded James as Wormtail went from white to green. Remus sighed, and swiftly pulled his wand out. “Whoa! _Whoa!”_ cried James and Sirius together, both yanking their own wands out of their pockets as Wormtail stared unbelieving at Remus. Parvati jumped backwards into Seamus’ arms, and the two of them moved up against the wall as the adults threatened to duel.

   “We never understood,” said Remus sadly. “How they were found. They had some of the best protection there was. And Peter personally assured us he had sent his patronus to warn them.”

   “I did!” Wormtail squeaked desperately. “It wasn’t my fault they didn’t evacuate in time!”

   “Molly once explained their escape route to me,” said Lily. A tear was rolling down her face. “It would have taken them a split second to get out.” She took in a shuddery breath. “Unless someone knew about their wards. Knew how to block the charm.”

   “This is _madness!”_ yelled Wormtail, looking to James and Sirius for help. “You knew their defences as well, we helped install them together!”

   For the first time, Harry could see a flicker of doubt grace over his father and his godfather’s faces. “Of course,” said James. “We did it together.”

   “But they did know precisely which wards were in place,” said Malfoy gravely. “I heard my father gloating how-” he faltered. “How easy it was.”

   “Shut UP!” roared James swinging his wand round to Malfoy and making him flinch. “This isn’t true, it can’t be!”

   “I didn’t do it,” pleaded Wormtail, but he only had James and Sirius by his side now. Remus and Lily had moved their feet, angled their bodies to bring them closer to Harry. “Lily, how can you say this? Remus?”

   “Because it’s true,” said Harry through his teeth. “You’re a spineless liar and you’d give anyone up to save your own SKIN!”

   Wormtail grabbed his wand and thrust it towards Harry. “You spoilt BRAT!” he screamed. “You’re always tormenting everyone else for your own amusement! What, did your new pal Draco put you up to this, or perhaps your little Mudblood girlfriend!”

   He was blasted off his feet and sent skidding into the hallway. “Don’t you _ever,”_ growled Lily, stalking forwards. “Use that word!”

   James was confounded, snapping his head between Wormtail and his wife. “What are you doing!” he pleaded at her.

   “You never liked me!” snivelled Wormtail as he pushed himself back up onto his feet. “You were always jealous of James’ friends, taking him away from you, from your _kids.”_ He snarled the last word like it was dirty, flashing a glare at Harry. “You and your perfect life, you always hated me!”

   “No Peter,” said Lily firmly. “I never hated you.” Her face darkened. “But if this is _true._ If you are a mole that’s been spying on us for more than a _decade,_ you can believe I’ll hate you then. There won’t be a word to describe my fury.”

   “Lily,” said James again. “This isn’t evidence. This is an accusation from some traitorous little Death Eater spawn!”

   Harry saw Malfoy flinch beside him, but he didn’t protest. He just kept his grey eyes fixed on Wormtail standing between James and Sirius, still out in the corridor where Lily had blast him.

   “No it’s not,” argued Harry through the lump in his throat. “I am telling you that if Sirius had made Wormtail your Secret Keeper instead, he would have handed you over to You-Know-Who personally, then framed Sirius for your deaths.” Harry felt something physical and painful run through him as the grief reached up and twisted his insides. “They gave him the Order of _bloody_ Merlin!” he cried bitterly.

   “Harry,” said Sirius. “You’re talking nonsense.”

   “I don’t care,” replied Harry, knowing he couldn’t explain without revealing he was from an alternate universe.

   And then it hit him. Last night, in the old History of Magic classroom. He had been so beyond angry, so incandescent with rage thinking how everything Sirius had been through was all Wormtail’s fault, how if only he hadn’t switched places and made him the Secret Keeper, everything would have been okay…

   And here he was, in a world where that really was true, where Sirius had _considered_ changing, but had then decided against it. A world for every yes and every no, that’s what Hermione had described in her parallel dimension theory. In one world Sirius had said yes to trusting Wormtail, and in this world…no.

   Had Harry willed himself here? With his insatiable desire to save his godfather’s life, had he reached out and found a universe where that had really happened?

   Whatever the case he wasn’t going to make the mistake of trusting Peter Pettigrew a second time. He had seen everything he needed to prove his guilt, and he wasn’t going to let him slip off into the night like he had outside the Shrieking Shack.

   Harry shook himself; all this had passed through his head in a matter of seconds. “I told you it’s complicated,” he repeated to the room. “But I am _not_ letting that man leave this house unless he is under arrest!”

   “You really think you can stand up to three grown wizards Harry?” asked Wormtail arrogantly.

   “You really want to see me try?” Harry asked back, and Wormtail’s brief smug facade slipped.

   “No one is fighting anyone,” said James, holing up his hands. “Just, everyone, put your wands down.”

   “Moony,” pleaded Wormtail to Remus, changing tactics. “Mate, we’re friends, how can you say these things?”

   “Because,” said Remus, avoiding looking at James or Sirius. “I’m now wondering how many times I’ve looked the other way because ‘we’re friends’. How many mistakes have been made.” He closed his eyes. “How many lives have been lost.”

   “No,” snapped James. “No, this has got to stop. Peter is not some spy, he would never endanger others, he’s got a good family, good friends, why would he have anything to do with the Dark Lord!”

   “Because he’s weak,” growled Harry.

   “And he’d do anything to save his own skin,” sneered Malfoy from his side. “Including give up the only people who ever liked him.”

   “Says you!” cried Parvati, daring to join in for the first time in minutes. “You betrayed us all!”

   Malfoy turned to look at the Indian girl trembling by the curtains, spurred on by her moment of daring. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said darkly.

   “I think we know _exactly_ what we’re talking about,” said Seamus defiantly. Malfoy spared him only a glower, before turning back to Wormtail.

   “Harry, why are you listening to him!” pleaded Parvati. “You know what he’s done, we all know Peter’s a friend of your family!”

   “Stay out of this Patil,” said Malfoy sternly. “Before you get hurt.”

   Seamus stood in front of her protectively, and they both had their wands out and pointed at Malfoy, though not with half the conviction Harry and Malfoy had theirs at Wormtail.

   Lily and Remus both held their own in front of them firmly, but their targets weren’t so sure. Wormtail was still using Sirius as a shield, and James had his wand aimed for Malfoy too. Only Hermione stood defenceless by Harry’s side, her breathing ragged as her wide, brown eyes analysed everyone.

   “James,” said Remus, his voice tight. “Sirius. You both read the report, you showed it to me too. The Ministry’s investigation into the death of the Weasley family came up empty because they couldn’t see _how_ the Death Eaters knew precisely which wards were up? It was the _only_ way they could have breached the Burrow.”

   “No,” said Sirius, shaking his head, but Harry caught him glancing at Wormtail.

   “Padfoot,” breathed Wormtail, sensing the doubt as well. “You know me, I would never have let Arthur and Molly get hurt.”

   “What about their children,” said Harry, feeling that lump rise in his throat again. “Ron, Ginny, the twins?”

   Wormtail blinked the sweat from his eyes, and chose to ignore Harry’s words. “Why would I do this?” he asked Lily and the other three Marauders instead. “It makes no sense, you’re my friends, I’m loyal to _you!”_

   Harry realised Malfoy was nodding. “That was true,” he said, emphasis on the ‘was’. “But the pain became too much didn’t it?”

   “Shut UP!” Wormtail screamed, but Malfoy looked disgusted.

   “Just a few days, a few blasts of the Cruciatus Curse,” he derided. “They threatened your family,” he continued, and something in his voice slipped, but he didn’t pause. “But it was the _pain_ that made you crack.”

   James aimed his wand at Malfoy’s head again. “You’re a lying, serpentine, skull-stamped piece of-”

   “The Dark Mark,” said Wormtail suddenly, grabbing at his sleeves. “Look, I don’t have a tattoo, there’s no scar! How can I be one of them if I don’t have the tattoo!”

   He looked so triumphant Harry felt his insides flip as Wormtail showed them all his unblemished wrists where the tattoo of a black skull with a green snake coming out of its mouth should have been.

   But Malfoy actually lowered his wand. “Then show them your ankles?” he said calmly.

   Wormtail swallowed and dropped his sleeves. “Why would I do that?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant, but Harry didn’t miss the slight stammer.

   Sirius looked at James, who’s head tilted as his mouth pressed together. “No,” he said to Sirius, voice trembling.

   Sirius took in a deep breath. “Because some undercover agents,” said Sirius as Harry felt his heart thump in his throat. “Have their Dark Mark on their ankle instead, to avoid detection.”

   “No,” repeated Wormtail, backing away into the hallway again. “No, guys, you can’t be serious? I’m _not_ a Death Eater!”

   “Then show us your ankles,” said Remus sadly. Everyone now had their wands trained in the direction of Wormtail as he shook and took another step away. “It’s simple Peter, you can prove your innocence right here, right now.”

   “You can prove you didn’t betray the Weasleys,” said Lily.

   “Or Arabella Figg,” said Sirius.

   “The Diggorys too,” said Malfoy with distain.

   Parvati gasped. “Cedric?” she cried, and Harry mentally added yet another set of names to the casualty list.

   “Just show them,” said James, the only one now who seemed hesitant about aiming his wand at Wormtail. He was more holding it by his side. “Prove that it’s not true.”

   “Why should I!” Wormtail shrieked. “My _friends_ should just trust me! But, oh no! Let’s pick on Peter again, let’s _torment_ him!”

   “We’re not tormenting you,” said Lily moving closer, they were all moving closer.  

   “Stay OUT of this Evans!” Wormtail spat at her. “You always ruin things, things were just find before you came along and took James away! Even Moony liked you better than me by the time we left school!”

   “This has NOTHING to do with Lily,” shouted James, finally raising his wand with conviction. “Now are you going to take your sodding socks off, or do we have to do it _for you!”_

   The door behind Wormtail popped open, and the confused face of Sarah Potter appeared in the gap. “What’s _going on_ out here?” she asked, bewildered.

   Harry felt like his entire innards dropped into his shoes. Time froze as Wormtail glanced at the little girl near him, then jerked and slammed the door all the way open.

   _“NO!”_ bellowed Harry, lurching forwards, seemingly realising what was about to happen before anyone else could guess, but he was still too late.

   Sarah was still clutching her sheet music from where she’d been playing the piano, but Wormtail seized her by the scruff of her neck and yanked her in front of him, his wand pointed at her temple, the paper pages flying from her grasp and fluttering to the ground.

   He’d finally decided to show his hand.

   And Sarah Potter was in it.

 

***

 

   The entire room lurched the second after Harry had, but Wormtail shook Sarah menacingly. “Back OFF!” he snarled, the triumphant glint back in his eyes.

   “Uncle Peter?” cried Sarah, even more confused. “What are you doing, let me go!”

   “Peter,” breathed James, holding up his wand in surrender. “Don’t do anything foolish, we can talk about this.”

   “Uncle _Peter!”_ shouted Sarah, pulling at the hand by her throat that was balled around her jumper. “Get off, you’re hurting me. GET OFF!”

   But Wormtail just shook her again. “Shut up,” he growled.

   “What are you doing?” said Lily tensely. “Peter, just what are you hoping to do here!”

   Wormtail actually laughed and hauled Sarah back towards the door. “I don’t know,” he said. “I really don’t know. Everything was going along fine, then Draco here comes along and blows my cover, I don’t really have many choices!” He sounded hysterical, a breathless laugh at the back of his words.

   Sarah was jerking her head left and right, trying to look at Wormtail, then attempting to get answers from the mass of people slowly following them out into the hallway. James and Sirius by Lily and Remus, Harry felt too far away stood with Malfoy and Hermione behind them. He had to get in there, had to do something.

   “Uncle _Peter!”_ hollered Sarah, lashing out with her fists. “Let me go, let me GO!” She flailed her arms and legs, kicking at his shins and trying to claw at his face like a cat in a sack.

   “Wormtail, this has nothing to do with her,” shouted Harry.

   Wormtail scoffed, his hysteria well and truly set in now. “It had nothing to do with me either!” he cried, glaring directly at Harry. “But you were special, you had to be destroyed! No matter that James was my friend, it was up to _me_ to deliver you to him! And when I couldn’t…” He trailed off, and Sarah tried to use his lull to break free, but Wormtail pulled her back before she had a chance to even think about getting out of his grip.

   “She’s my baby,” shouted Lily, fear alight in her whole body. “Don’t hurt her Peter, please, we can work something out!”

   “Oh I’ve already worked something out,” said Wormtail viciously, and stepped backwards again. “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt your little _angel.”_ He shook Sarah again and she gasped, straining with everything her small body had to give, trying to fight off the grown man dragging her away from her family. “She’s going to keep me alive, from you, from _them.”_

   Harry saw his whole dad’s frame sag. “Who?” he asked. Their group was all in the corridor now, bunched up and entirely focused on the traitor with his wand at Sarah’s head. “What do you mean?”

   Wormtail clamped his jaw together and curled his lip. “You won’t attack me whilst I’ve got her, you know at this range I could kill her before any spell hit me.”

   At his words Sarah suddenly went limp, tears instantly pooling in her eyes. “Mum?” she stammered.

   “It’s okay baby,” she said, trying to sound reassuring as she reached out to her daughter. “It’ll be okay.” But Wormtail jerked her back again.

   “So we’re going to take a little walk down the path out here,” he said. “Until we’re far enough from the house to apparate.”

   “No,” whispered Lily.

   “And then you can let her go,” said Sirius threateningly.

   But Wormtail just smirked again. “You think he’ll let me live, after this mess?” he asked. “You think he won’t get-” he choked on the word. “Inventive?”

   “You’re damn right he will,” growled Malfoy. “You thought before was bad?”

   “Malfoy, shut up!” cried Harry, but the other boy shook his head, undeterred.

   “Give up now, let her go,” he said to Wormtail. “We can protect you, the Ministry can too. It doesn’t have to be like this!”

   “No,” said Wormtail, blinking and shaking his head as Sarah trembled against his iron grip. “No I don’t think so, spend my life looking over my shoulder, waiting for the ambush, I have to redeem myself.”

   “We’re you’re _friends,”_ bellowed Sirius. _“We’re_ the ones you need to redeem yourself to!”

   “Please don’t do this,” begged Lily.

   Sarah tried again to hit out at her captor, a gust of defiance blowing through her again. “Uncle Peter STOP IT!” she shrieked.

   But he just groped for the door handle and swung it open, a freezing rush of air engulfing them in the hall. “I tried to protect you,” cried Wormtail to the group following him. “I’ve been through _Hell._ But you always take me for granted, exclude me, belittle me. I’m always the punching bag, aren’t I – AREN’T I?”

   “Just let her go,” said James, reaching out as Wormtail moved himself and Sarah off the step and out into the night. She gasped as the cold air bit through her clothes. “We won’t stop you, we’ll let you apparate.”

   Wormtail grinned as they moved another step down the pathway, and the group squeezed out into the night. Harry barely felt the wind, he was almost delirious with concern for Sarah’s safety.   He’d told her to stay in the other room. He’d _told_ her.

   “Oh no,” said Wormtail. “Don’t you see, if I take her with me, she’ll stop the Dark Lord from laying down his wrath on me, she’ll protect me from him to.”

   “How?” demanded Remus. “How can a little girl do that?”

   “Because,” said Wormtail, moving inch by inch, crunching down the gravelled path. “I know how important she is to you. I know if we give the wonder boy over there a chance to come rescue her, you’ll risk it.”

   “What?” said James.

   “They want Harry,” said Malfoy bitterly. “That’s always their endgame. He’ll redeem himself by delivering Harry to You-Know-Who.”

   Harry blanched. “You want me?” he asked, but it wasn’t really a question. When hadn’t Voldemort wanted him? “Then take me, just take me! Let her go!”

   Wormtail laughed again. “You? I’ve seen the nasty things Sirius has taught you, I wouldn’t last a second. No, I’ll take the princess here, and you can come and find her.”

   “You’re asking us to trade one child, for another?” rasped James in disbelief.

   Wormtail scowled, his features looking more and more rat-like in the moonlight as they edged down the tree-lined path towards the road. “I guess you’ll have to think about which one means more?” Wormtail taunted, shaking Sarah as tears fell silently down her face. “Which one will stand a better chance against the Dark Lord’s might.”

   “No,” breathed Sirius as Lily lunged forward, but Wormtail lifted his wand threateningly by Sarah’s head and James pulled her back.

   _“You COWARD!”_ she screamed, fighting against her husband’s grasp. _“You TRAITOR! Let her GO!”_

   But Wormtail would not be moved, and Harry felt a terrible sickness rising in him. “I’m just doing what I have to,” said Wormtail. “To survive. It’s what I’ve always had to do, but you wouldn’t know anything about that would you?” He sneered unkindly. “It’s always so easy for the Potters, never have to think about what others might be going through?”

   “We can still fix this,” pleaded James, and Harry was all too aware how close they were getting to the road now. Where did the boundary end? When would he be able to apparate away?

   Wormtail shook his head. “Too late,” he snarled. “Send Harry to us, the Malfoy boy knows the way. And who knows? Maybe if he gets him there in one piece he can explain what the Hell he was doing with Harry Potter in the first place?”

   He gave Malfoy a wicked, gloating smile.

   “Last chance,” Malfoy replied. “You can still end this.”

   “Please,” begged Harry. “This is between you and me. It doesn’t have to be like this.”

   They were only a few feet away, the group forming a semi-circle around Wormtail and Sarah as they took another step, then another. But they couldn’t make a move, not without risking Sarah’s life.

   “Yes it does,” Wormtail told him. They were at the end of the garden path, and Wormtail stepped out onto the road, clutching Sarah by his side. “And it’s all your fault. Goodbye everyone.”

   There was screaming, people lunged, but it was no good. Peter Pettigrew spun on the spot, Sarah Potter held firmly in his arms.

   And then, just like that, they were gone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was quite a lot to take in, and a lot of emotions flying about wasn't it? But now the story is in full swing, so let's keep going and see what Harry does!
> 
> PS, Don't forget to follow the story on Facebook and Tumblr! (The HP Dream Trilogy/@thehpdreamtrilogy) You can listen to all the music that the chapters are named after, as well as see who I've cast as the main characters for the book covers etc.


	5. Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh get down of the cross, someone needs the wood.” Seamus Finnigan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first long chapter, and from now on they are all on average about this length. 
> 
> Harry can't just leave Sarah to Voldemort's mercy, so he takes it upon himself to mount a rescue. Will he be going alone though...?

Chapter Four -

   Silence

 

Give me release

Witness me

I am outside

Give me peace

 

Heaven holds a sense of wonder

And I wanted to believe

That I'd get caught up

When the rage in me subsides

 

In this white wave

I am sinking

In this silence

In this white wave

In this silence

I believe

 

I have seen you

In this white wave

You are silent

You are breathing

In this white wave

I am free

 

Sarah McLachlan

 

   The night’s sky lit up with up with a flurry of dazzling colours as spells lashed and tore through the air in a frenzied attempt to reverse what Peter Pettigrew had just done. Lily Potter’s unearthly scream punctuated the sizzle of magic as she repeated the same word over and over again. _“No!”_ she screeched, beseeching the heavens. _“No, no, no!”_

   Harry stood and watched in shock as his father, Sirius and Remus joined her, enraged, flashing their wands and trying to follow where Wormtail had taken Sarah Potter. But no matter how they turned, what magic they tried, nothing happened. No clue as to where Wormtail had gone or what fate laid in wait for Sarah.

   Harry just stood there, Hermione and Malfoy by his side, shaking and fighting the urge to throw up. “This is my fault,” he whispered, his words curling into smoke in the freezing November air. “All of it.”

   “No,” said Remus, who was close enough to hear. “No Harry, you did not do this.”

   He reached over and took Harry by the shoulders as Lily folded to the ground, her wand growing dark as she beat the tarmac of the road, her screams turning to sobs. “Sarah,” she howled. “Oh my baby girl!”

   James dropped to his knees, and the magic ebbed away as he and Sirius realised the futility of it all. “We’ll find her,” he said, wrapping his arms around his wife’s shaking form.

   But Lily threw him off, sending him flying before scrambling to her feet and lunging for him. _“He was YOUR friend!”_ she screamed as Sirius grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back. She thrashed against his arms, her vicious fury targeting him too. _“I let him into our HOME!”_ She lashed out at him a few more times before the fight blew out of her, and she sagged into his chest, tears running down her cheeks, body trembling as James came back and took her into a hug.

   “It _is_ my fault,” said Harry, pushing Remus away and stepping backwards, horror engulfing him like a tsunami. “She’s so little, I should have fought back, made him take me, it’s me he wants!” He pulled at his hair and walked into the trees, hiding from the moonshine that seemed to glare on him like a spotlight.

   “I can’t believe it,” said Sirius, stunned. “This can’t be real. It’s like some sort of nightmare.”

   Remus was shaking his head. “We can’t fall apart,” he said. And then he spotted Malfoy, standing still in disbelief, watching the grief roll off all those around him. “Draco,” he said suddenly. “What did Peter mean, when he said you knew the way?”

   “You!” roared James, leaping away from Lily and sprinting at Malfoy to tackle him. “This is YOUR fault!” He managed one swing, narrowly missing Malfoy’s face that still had traces of blood on from Seamus’ punch earlier, before Remus stepped in and pushed him back.

   “I had _nothing_ to do with this!” Malfoy shouted back, stepping away as Harry’s dad tried to free himself of his friend’s grip.

   “You’re a Death Eater, you show up at my house and my daughter gets KIDNAPPED!”

   “He wasn’t supposed to be here!” Malfoy retorted, bobbing behind Remus as he kept himself between them. “We made sure, he would have reported straight back to headquarters, no one else was supposed to be here!”

   James finally calmed a bit and stepped away, running his hands through his hair much in the same manner as Harry himself had just done. Sirius had helped Lily back up on her feet by this point, and her anguish had turned into a tight-jawed fury. “I think you owe us some serious answers young man,” she said as the two of them came closer. “Right now.”

   Malfoy nodded. “Yes,” he said stiffly. “Of course. Just…I’d appreciate it if people stopped trying to punch me.”

   “Done,” said Remus diplomatically as James’ temper flared again, but he stayed back with a look from Remus. “Everyone, inside. It’s too cold to think out here and we can’t waste a second more than we have to.”

   James took a second, but then he nodded, and, with a weary look at Malfoy, stormed back up the pathway. Lily and Sirius followed, then Remus ushered the teenagers to do the same.

   Hermione was stood shivering, despite being one of the only people still wearing a coat, her face taut with shock. “Are you okay?” Harry asked as he approached her.

   She widened her eyes. “Me?” she said. “What about you guys?” They began making their way back to the house, Malfoy awkwardly behind them, and Remus keeping the hurried pace at the end. Harry just shook his head. He didn’t have the words to explain the turmoil he was feeling right then.

   Seamus and Parvati were waiting for them halfway between the house and the road. Parvati was hugging herself, tears tracking lines through her makeup down her cheeks, and Seamus had his hands stuffed into his pockets, his shoulders hunched. “I’m so sorry mate,” he said as Parvati launched herself and threw her arms around Harry.

   “This is awful!” she cried into his ear. He managed to persuade her to let him go, and together they all poured back into the warmth of the hallway, Remus slamming the door behind them.

   “How could we have let this happen?” asked Sirius, but Remus didn’t respond. He just continued shooing until everyone was back into the living room. No one sat, they were all too fraught, so instead a sort of circle was formed. James and Lily were clinging to each other, shivering despite being back in the warmth and staring blankly into the middle distance. Parvati and Seamus tucked themselves into a corner again, aware they were intruding on something deeply personal, and Sirius hovered by James’ other shoulder. Remus stood by him, and then Harry entered, standing by the archway where Wormtail had stood for most of his interrogation. Hermione was keeping close to him, her arms wrapped around her body as she watched everyone, taking everything in. And then Malfoy. Malfoy came and stood by Harry’s other shoulder.

   Harry couldn’t recall ever being this close to the Slytherin unless they were physically attacking one another. Malfoy seemed aware of their proximity too, not too near, but definitely allying himself with Harry within a foot or so. The two boys caught eyes for a moment, then turned back to the room as everyone settled in their place.

   “Where is my daughter?” growled Lily. Her face was still wet but the tears had now stopped.

   Malfoy swallowed audibly. “I assume Wormtail meant,” he said, making eye contact with each adult in the room in turn but finishing with Lily. “That he’s taken her to the headquarters, You-Know-Who’s current base of operations.”

   “Which is where?” demanded James.

   “I can’t,” said Malfoy regretfully. “Tell you, it’s protected.”

   “Then what did Peter mean-?” Sirius started to shout, but Malfoy waved him down.

   “But I can show you, I know the back way in. That’s why I was sent to get Harry.” He glanced at Harry, who was not at all reassured.

   “You came here to take Harry to You-Know-Who?” cried Lily in horror.

   “No,” said Malfoy, trying to sound affirmative. “No, that wasn’t the plan, I mean, not right away-”

   “Start at the beginning,” instructed Remus, his tone cold. “The quicker we understand the quicker we can work out how we can help Sarah.”

Malfoy blinked then nodded. “Yeah, sure,” he said, then took a breath and seemed to consider. “I am sorry,” he said, those grey eyes wide again. Harry was so used to seeing him scowling or smirking it was strange to see his face in an honest composition. “This has all gone so wrong, it was only supposed to be your family home.”

   “We’ve had a strange day,” said James, looking towards Harry who felt the guilt wash over him again and he had to reach out and take a hold of the coving running along the living room archway. “I asked the guys down the pub.”

   “We came to see if Harry was okay,” said Parvati, nodding at Seamus. Malfoy gave her a look to suggested no one had asked her anything.

   “So you expect us to believe,” said Lily, still glowering at Malfoy. “That you know he’s a Death Eater spy, because you _used_ to be one of them?”

   Malfoy clenched his jaw and seemed to really consider what he was going to say. “I should have left a long time ago,” he said in a low tone. “Have you heard of Freiheit?”

   “No,” said Harry and Hermione together at the foreign sounding word.

   “Yes,” said everyone else in the room, as they then turned to stare questioningly at Harry. Sirius even raised his eyebrow, and Harry stared to panic he was going to blow his cover. How would they react if they realised he wasn’t really their son, that he’d kicked him out of his own body and they had in fact lost both of their children today.

   For the first time Harry wondered _where_ the other Harry was, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it long.

   “It’s a resistance group,” said Malfoy patiently to Harry. He seemed to really want to appease him. “I thought it was a rumour, but…well it’s not.”

   “So you jump ship,” snapped James. “Decide to come pay us a visit and put my whole family in danger.”

   “None of this would have happened if Wormtail hadn’t been here!” cried Malfoy. “I didn’t know how Harry knew, but I’m glad he did otherwise you never would have believed me and everything would have been ruined!”

   “Except now he’s taken my sister hostage,” said Harry, gripping onto that coving like it was the only thing anchoring him to the ground.

   Malfoy licked his lips. “Yeah,” he said. “And that’s awful. But like I said, there could be hundreds of lives at stake.”

   “I don’t CARE,” shouted Lily, trembling with fury. “She is TWELVE years old, and she has been taken by someone we’ve trusted almost our whole lives as, what? Bait!”

   Malfoy held up his hands placatingly. “I know, I know,” he said.

   “I don’t think you do,” replied James.

   “People!” said Remus, quieting the room again. “Draco, focus. Who sent you here, and why?”

   “Look,” said Malfoy. “I’m not an idiot. I never wanted to come here, I know you all hate me, but I’m still underage, I don’t have the trace on me like the adults and something really big is happening. So, yeah, when I approached Severus he was able to confirm to me all about Freiheit, and I was just in time to help them.” He nodded at Harry. “With some help I was able to travel undetected, and I had to try and persuade Harry to come join us.”

   “Why?” said James, looking at Harry. “Why do you want a teenage boy who hasn’t even had a proper education?”

   “None of that matters,” said Malfoy.

   “You-Know-Who wants Harry,” said Remus. “Isn’t that what you said?”

   Malfoy shook his head. “He always wants Harry,” he said, echoing Harry’s own thought from earlier.

   “What are you talking about?” asked James, shaking his head.

   “That’s why you had to go into hiding,” said Malfoy, getting a little impatient. “Why you had a Secret Keeper in the first place. Except now it’s about a hundred times more, he’s got all these psychics working round the clock and something has happened, that’s why I had to get here by tonight.” He pulled at his dirty blond hair. “I almost thought I wouldn’t make it. Severus sent me a message; they made an attempt on him last night, on the way back from the Boot’s place.”

   Lily’s head snapped towards Harry. “Is that what’s been wrong with him?” she asked. “Harry, do you remember?”

   He knew full well that wasn’t what was wrong with him, but it gave him chills thinking about that other Harry. How close had they been?

   “He wanted us,” said James stubbornly, letting Harry out of answering. “That’s what we were told.”

   But Malfoy shook his head. “The prophecy was about Harry.”

   “What does Harry have to do with You-Know-Who?” Lily asked. “Why did Peter want him to come rescue Sarah? It doesn’t make any sense.”

   “Is it just,” said James, forcing down a grimace. “Some sick game?”

   “Is he going to hurt my girl?” asked Lily.

   Malfoy’s eyes flicked between them under their scrutiny. “I,” he said, unsure. “I don’t think so. I think he meant what he said. He wants to draw Harry and I to them.” He looked apologetically at Harry. “I think they probably have something unpleasant in mind for us, but not for her. I hope not.”

   “You hope not!” thundered James.

   “You heard him!” cried Malfoy. “He’s vindictive and cruel, it’s the only way a spineless rat like him could survive against real monsters! He wants to punish you, the way he thinks he’s been punished, by forcing you to do something you don’t want to do!” He took a deep breath. “But I honestly don’t think he’d hurt her, he’s not got the gall.”

   “But what about anyone else?” asked Sirius.

   “Sirius!” cried Lily appalled and covering her ears. “No, no I can’t think about that!”

   Malfoy fanned his hands. “I truly think he’ll make sure she’s not hurt, she’ll be more useful that way. But we have to act fast.”

   “Fine,” snapped Lily. “So you can take us to them, we’ll go get her back.”

   “If he wants to play games, we’ll play,” growled James. “And he’ll lose.”

Malfoy looked resolved for another attempt at a punch to his face. “You can’t,” he said, then quickly continued before anyone could protest. “I told you, I’m underage, so is Harry, so we’re not tagged in the same way. You’re all adults and you work for the Ministry, the Order.” He nodded towards Sirius and Remus. “You’re all category A, you’ve been tagged in so many ways by the time we got to the base it would have been completely evacuated. But not Harry.”

   Harry couldn’t help but be a little confused. In his world, it was the other way round. Under-age children were tagged, traced, whatever you wanted to call it, and adults could do as they pleased. What kind of world was this, that they had written off a whole generation as incompetent, not a threat, incapable? Maybe the adults’ movements were more valuable, and therefore worth their time. With all the kids being home schooled maybe if the Ministry flagged up every time they did magic it would be a fruitless exercise. He let the idea hang, it wasn’t the most important thought he’d had today, except if it meant what he thought it meant.

   Remus was shaking his head. “So, you’re telling me you join Freiheit, and they send you here to get Harry, to take him over to You-Know-Who?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, but doesn’t that sound like exactly what You-Know-Who wants?”

   Malfoy rubbed the back of his sleeve on his grimy forehead. “Not right away. We were going to take him to _our_ headquarters, train him, give him everything he needed so we could then send him in with a team and we’d have an advantage for once!”

   “No,” said Lily, untangling herself from James. “No, stop, how does taking my son to the _Dark Lord_ give anyone an advantage?”

   Malfoy pressed his fingers to his temples. “Are you seriously telling me you don’t know? That crackpot Dumbledore never told you?”

   “Hey,” snapped Sirius with a warning finger. “No.”

   “Tell us what?” asked James. He and Lily were both staring at Harry, and he was feeling increasingly sick. “Is this about the prophecy?”

   Malfoy was shaking his head. “I’m not supposed to be talking about any of this,” he said, shooting a dirty look at Seamus and Parvati. “I can’t believe you don’t know.”

   “Hey!” spat Seamus. “We just came to see if Harry was okay, which he’s obviously not!”

   “You are compromising everything by just being here!” retorted Malfoy.

   “This is all your fault!” Parvati yelled. “It’s always your fault!”

   “Enough!” Remus interjected.

   “Draco,” shouted Lily. “Just _tell_ us.”

   Malfoy thrust a pointed hand into Harry’s face. “He’s the _heir of Gryffindor!”_ he shouted back.

   Harry held onto that coving for all his life was worth.

   _What?_

   Everyone else looked just as stunned. “How?” stammered Lily. “What-?”

   Malfoy was breathing in and out deeply. “Yes, Gryffindor. And You-Know-You is the heir of Slytherin. I’m not sure if that’s the same prophecy that forced you into hiding, there are a few apparently, the Ministry have some but we haven’t been able to gain access to them. But apparently they’re all something about history repeating itself, that one of the heirs has to destroy the other, that they can’t both live.”

   He looked around uneasily as everyone stared at him, dumbfounded.

   “I mean,” he said with a shrug. “That’s just what I heard.”

   “Why wouldn’t Dumbledore have told us?” said James. “This is lunacy, he’s just…” he gesticulated awkwardly to Harry. “Harry.”

   If only they knew, thought Harry. Suddenly a great deal of his life made a lot more sense. That didn’t stop him from reeling from finally understanding why so many people had suffered protecting him, why Voldemort had tried so hard to kill him all his life. The nausea was getting worse, his head was spinning. He was Gryffindor’s heir? He had to kill Voldemort?

   “He might not know,” sniped Malfoy. “He doesn’t know everything you know?”

   “Hang on, back track,” said Lily coldly. “Are you telling us Harry has to kill You-Know-You, or he’ll kill Harry. And you want to _take_ him right to him!”

   “He won’t stand a chance!” cried Remus.

   “I have to-” said Harry suddenly. “Sorry, I need a minute.”

   He managed to steady himself enough to let go of the coving. Without a word he grabbed Hermione’s hand, and pulled her from the lounge, along the corridor and into the library he’d seen earlier but not gone inside. It was large, probably too large for the size of the house, but Harry assumed it had been magically altered. The books filled every available shelf all the way up to the ceiling, and there were a few plush sofas and a wooden desk that was littered with parchment.

   Harry shut the door and let the silence of the books take hold of him, lift him up like he was suspended in water. He closed his eyes.

   “What have I done?” he whispered to Hermione. He was desperately hoping this time he’d get a proper answer.

She frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

   He pointed back the way they’d just come from, guilt hanging from his limbs like steal manacles. “Sarah,” he said simply. “It’s all my fault. If I wasn’t here, if it had been the other Harry it was supposed to be, she wouldn’t have been kidnapped by Death Eaters. Why did I have to say anything?”

   His arm fell heavily by his side. Hermione chewed her lip and stared at the ground. She must know he was right.

   “What would the other Harry have done?”

   Harry blinked. “Excuse me?”

   “If he had been here, instead of you, how would he have handled it?”

   He could tell she was trying to get him to figure something out by himself, but he really had no clue what she was getting at. “Well I’ve got no idea,” he said, strained. “I’m not him.”

   “Exactly. Think about it – he has known that man Wormtail his whole life. If Malfoy had shown up, he would have believed Wormtail’s side of the story and chucked Malfoy back on the street.”

   “And Sarah wouldn’t have been kidnapped,” he said, proving his own point. But Hermione shook her head.

   “No, you’re thinking too narrowly! Peter’s a spy, he’s been passing information on you, and if they almost got you – him – last night, how long before they managed it for real?” Her eyes were shining as Harry took this in. “And what would that other Harry be able to do in that situation? You’ve been fighting that wizard...You-Know-Who, practically since you were a baby, and all the rest! The other Harry wouldn’t be in half the position as you are to fight back, or more importantly, to _rescue your sister.”_ She clutched her hands together earnestly, almost on her tiptoes in anticipation.

   Harry thought that sort of made sense. “So...you’re saying it’s lucky that I’m here?”

   She bit her lip again. “I don’t know, I think it’s more than that.” She started walking around the room, making the candle light dance. “The idea behind all that alternate reality stuff I was telling you is that everything that’s meant to happen, does. It couldn’t happen any other way for you, because that’s how it’s happened in another reality. So,” she wrapped her hair around her hand and pulled it taut. “I think maybe, when you made yourself enter into a new reality...you picked the one you were meant to be in.” She raised her eyebrows sceptically. Harry didn’t know what to say. That was so farfetched. Was she trying to make him feel better by assuring him this was, what? Fate? She shrugged. “Or...maybe it’s just a massive coincidence. The point is you can rescue Sarah, you’ve done stuff like this before. The other Harry hasn’t – or so it seems.”

   “I guess you’re right,” he said slowly. If he stopped tearing himself up with blame, her logic did make sense. He had been through far more scrapes than this sheltered life would suggest his doppelganger had. Maybe he could get Sarah back? “So, you think I should go with Malfoy?”

   She nodded. “I can see you guys don’t like him, and I don’t like the fact he knew my name, that him and Wormtail were studying me.” She shuddered visibly. “But he said he knows the way, didn’t he?”

Harry grimaced. “But,” he said. “It’s _Malfoy,”_ he said.

   She shrugged. “I don’t know, I just met him,” she reminded him.

   “Ah,” said Harry. “Well, there was this one time when you slapped him. Right across the face. He’s that bad.”

   Hermione raised her eyebrows and looked back towards the lounge. “I hit someone?” she said, uncertain.

   Harry couldn’t help but let out a little laugh, despite all the horror of the situation. “It was brilliant,” he assured her.

   She didn’t look convinced. “Well,” she said sombrely. “If he does know a back way to get to You-Know-Who, that means you have at least a chance of rescuing Sarah doesn’t it?”

   Harry nodded. “And facing You-Know-Who,” he said. “You’re right, the other Harry barely went to school from the sounds of it.” He sighed grimly to himself. “I on the other hand…”

   “Have survived again and again,” finished Hermione for him. “I know I only found out about this whole world a few hours ago, but if you ask me I think you can do this.” She took his hand. “Everyone will underestimate you. I think you were meant to come here and save your sister.”

   Harry inhaled slowly, and nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

   Maybe if he said it out loud enough, he’d believe it.

   “Shall we go back?” he said, the guilt creeping back into his guts. “We haven’t got time to waste.”

   She nodded as he turned back towards the door. “Who’s Gryffindy?” she asked as he reached for the handle.

   “Gryffindor?” he corrected and paused. He’d forgotten about that. “Uh – he was a wizard. Him and the other guy, Slytherin, they founded Hogwarts like a thousand years ago with Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff.”

   Hermione sucked in a breath. “So, you being his heir is a big deal then?”

   “Um,” said Harry. “Yeah, pretty massive.” As if he didn’t have enough to deal with. He was the Boy Who Lived, and the heir of Godric Gryffindor.

   She rubbed the back of her neck. “Okay, right just checking.”

   As soon as they opened the door they heard the shouting; the library must have had a silencer charm on it. Harry shared one look with Hermione before running down the corridor, back towards the lounge.

   They turned the corner and saw Malfoy had been forced back into the hallway between the stairs and the front door. “Would you just listen to me!” he was saying, not even noticing Harry and Hermione approach.

   “Harry can’t go!” boomed James. “He knows more about Quidditch than he does Defence Against the Dark Arts!”

   “We can mask ourselves,” said Sirius. “We’ll take our chances with the tagging!”

   “Why aren’t you listening!” demanded Malfoy. “The prophecy-!”

   “I don’t give a rat’s arse about some prophecy!” Lily shouted.

   James pulled out his wand and aimed it at Malfoy, who snatched his own from his jeans to point it back defensively. “I am ordering you to take us to their headquarters.”

   “Don’t you threaten me!” snarled Malfoy.

   “Hey, HEY!” bellowed Harry, and finally they noticed him and Hermione. “It’s okay,” he said.

   “What part of this is okay?” said Lily incredulously.

   Harry looked at Hermione, who nodded. “The part where I go with Malfoy to rescue Sarah,” he said. “And take on You-Know-Who if I have to.”

   “Really?” said Malfoy.

   “No,” said Lily.

   “Are you insane?” piped up Seamus Finnigan from somewhere in the living room.

   “No, I’m not,” said Harry as Malfoy stared at him in confusion, lowing his wand. “I know I might sound it, but Malfoy’s right.” He took a deep breath. “You-Know-Who has been trying to kill me, my whole life. And now it’s put Sarah in danger. I’m the only one who can face him, and I have to try and save her. She’s innocent, it’s my fault Wormtail took her.”

   Lily was shaking her head. “But, you’ve not had proper teaching, he’s the deadliest wizard to ever walk this Earth. No, no this is madness.”

   “There’s no other way,” Harry argued, but his voice was soft. He could see how distressed his mother was, understandably. “I wish there were, believe me.”

   Lily’s shoulders slumped and she walked back into the living room, where James and Sirius naturally followed her. Harry, Hermione and Malfoy shared an uneasy look before doing the same. “I’m just supposed to trust that Malfoy knows the way back, that you won’t be caught.” She looked at the blond boy with tired, narrowed eyes. “That he can be trusted?”

   Malfoy didn’t react right away. He just came to a halt in the living room, much in the same place he’d been before, and kept eye contact with her. “I promise you,” he said. “I’ve got nothing left to lose. The only thing I care about now is stopping that mad man, saving every life I can from him.” He pulled at his satchel again and placed his wand back inside. “Starting with your daughter’s.”

Lily held his gaze a moment, green eyes to grey, then gave him a single nod.

   “Aren’t they going to be on the lookout for you though,” said Remus frowning. “If you’ve just deserted them?”

   Malfoy shook his head. “They don’t think I’ve deserted. They think I’m…” he closed his eye briefly, his jaw set in a bitter line. “Throwing a tantrum.”

   “They’ll know once Wormtail gets to them,” said Sirius grimly.

   Malfoy looked at him. “Then we haven’t got any time to waste.”

 

***

 

   The debate rolled on, fiercely, but Harry didn’t stay for it. He’d made up his mind, and he couldn’t explain to his father that he’d already defeated Voldemort four times already in his various guises, because that had happened in another reality. His mum wasn’t happy about it at all, but with Malfoy’s reassurances that they were the best shot at getting Sarah back alive she had stopped arguing and started helping.

   “What can I do?” was the last Harry had heard, before his father had exploded again and Harry had decided he had work of his own to do before they could leave. So he’d given Hermione a nod, then walked back out into the hallway, glancing over his shoulder as he mounted the staircase in case anyone was protesting.

   The adults were arguing so loudly they didn’t seem to notice. But Parvati and Seamus were both watching him go with worried looks on their faces. Harry gave them a tight smile, but he wasn’t coming back down again.

   He went to move, but he realised Malfoy was watching him too. His expression was pensive, and his hands were resting on the fraying strap of his satchel again. As Harry caught his eye, he shifted his jaw as if he was biting his tongue, then gave him a nod that was more of a jut of the chin. Harry did the same, even though it felt odd.

   He steadied himself on the banister as he reached the second floor landing, and almost pushed himself off again to propel his body towards his bedroom. His head was pounding as he groped for the handle and fumbled his way inside, the contents of his stomach still rolling around like the dregs of a beer barrel.

   How had this day got so much worse? his thoughts screamed as he closed the door and flattened his back against it. He’d been so terrified, so confused when he’d woken from that fretful sleep, traumatised with the apparent trickery of his resurrected family. Coupled with the elation of finding Hermione, of convincing her of his story, and then her explanation…

   This world was real. It may not have been the world he knew, but her theory of parallel dimensions made so much sense. After all, if time travel was possible, why not this?

   But that meant Sarah really _had_ been kidnapped by Wormtail, that she really _was_ in the clutches of the Death Eaters right then and there. His little sister, something Harry had never dared imagine to be true, had been snatched away by the man he hated most in entire world after Voldemort himself.

   How could Harry have let it happen again, let him slip away, let him destroy the life of someone close to him, _again?_

   Before he could stop himself he had his hands on the chair by his desk and he threw it at the wall with a scream. It tore through a poster of a rock band and left a crack in the wall. The guys Harry could still see holding guitars looked indignant through their smudged eyeliner. He stared at the chair on the floor, and blew out the breath, his rage and frustration abated again for now. With a flick of his wand he repaired the wall and the picture, then picked up the chair and put it back where it belonged. Throwing furniture was what had got him into this mess in the first place.

   He listened over his breathing, and thought maybe the shouting had died down. Whether that was a good or a bad thing though he wasn’t sure, so he got to work, not wanting to give anyone the chance to stop him from going with Malfoy. He pulled open his wardrobe and reached for the rucksack he’d seen when he’d got changed from his pyjamas earlier, and emptied out some rather funky smelling Quidditch robes.

   Malfoy, he worried as he looked around for what to actually put back in the bag. What did you need to go rescue your alternate-dimension-sister from an evil wizard’s headquarters?

   There was a feather-light cauldron on his desk, so he started with that as well as some basic potion ingredients he found lying about. Could he really trust that Malfoy wasn’t setting him up? he thought to himself. That he wasn’t just planning on delivering him to Voldemort as well? He sighed and picked up a copy of the Standard Book of Spells, dropping it into the backpack and shaking it to feel the weight. Just to be on the safe side he shrunk it to about half its size, then threw in some extra socks. You couldn’t go wrong with extra socks.

   The way he saw it, he didn’t have a choice. Malfoy was conniving, gutless and selfish, but he was the only one offering a solution right now. Harry just decided he would focus on finding Sarah, and hope any inevitable betrayal happened after that point. He rubbed the back of his neck as the band watched on, curious, when he remembered running out of change in the Floo station shop. “You guys wouldn’t know where my wallet is?” he asked the band, and they all pointed to the top drawer of his desk. “Thanks,” he said, and fished it out, glad to see a mixture of Muggle and magical money inside of a decent enough value.

   He wondered where they would be going, it really could be anywhere in the world? The prospect made his insides flips a little with nerves. Did it really matter though? The sooner they got going the sooner he would find out anyway, and the sooner they could come back, so maybe he should just go so he could come home again, and concentrate on finding his own universe to return to.

   Outside his bedroom though it was all very real. He couldn’t help but glance at his bed, and think if he just went back to sleep, would he wake up back at Hogwarts?

   And leave Sarah to the clutches of the Death Eaters? Hermione was right, the other Harry had been home-schooled and had almost certainly never had to fight for his life. There was no sense lamenting over ‘what ifs’, Harry was here now and he just had to get on with it. His sister needed him, and if what Malfoy said was really true, he was the only one capable of stopping Voldemort and saving goodness only knew how many more lives.

   Harry swallowed. He’d largely just won his battles by luck though, he didn’t really have any skill. It was his mother’s sacrifice that had seeped into his skin and saved him as a baby, and again from Professor Quirrell when he had hosted Voldemort’s remnants on the back of his head. The shadow of Tom Riddle had almost beat him with the Basilisk, if it hadn’t been for Fawkes the Phoenix coming to his rescue with Gryffindor’s sword and his magical healing tears. In fact, even the fact that Harry had been able to speak Parseltongue and confuse the beast had also been a result of what had happened when he’d been a baby, just an accident that had left Harry with his strange gift.

   He perched on the edge of the bed, feeling sick again, the rucksack dangling from his fingers. He supposed he had fought his way out of the graveyard just a few months ago, but he had not been able to save Cedric Diggory. It was only due to the matching cores that his and Voldemort’s wands had reacted like that and given him the chance to escape.

He dropped the bag and took his wand back out of his pocket. It really did look like the one he’d been using for the past four years; could it be possible that this Harry had got himself the same one, with the same core? After all, the wand chooses the wizard…

   He pocketed it again and stood up, throwing the bag over his shoulder and feeling just the smallest bit more confident. If he had just a little bit of luck on his side still, maybe there was a chance he could do this.

   He nodded to the band who’d been resting on their instruments and watching him. “Thanks,” he said, aware he was talking to nothing more than an enchanted poster, but it made him feel better all the same. They saluted back at him, looking cheerful once more, and the drummer banged his sticks over his head to count them back into their silent song again.

   Harry took one last look at his bedroom from another lifetime, and decided it was time to go. So he took a firm hold of the door handle, and let himself back out into the landing, where it was thankfully quiet and free of screaming voices. Hopefully the rest of them had come to some sort of understanding and would just let him leave.

   He couldn’t blame them for having questions, he thought as he crossed the landing and headed for the stairs. It was just he couldn’t answer them without sounding insane.

   An unexpected sound caught his ear as his foot touched the first step down, and he paused. It wasn’t shouting though, he realised quickly enough. Water was running from behind the closed bathroom door, like someone was having a shower, but it was a thump or a crack he’d heard. He wondered if it was important, but then decided to dismiss it. If someone wanted to have a shower now the timing was strange, but it wasn’t really Harry’s concern.

   He looked up and realised he’d come to a halt by the wall of photographs he’d spotted earlier running down the length of the staircase. He knew he’d told himself they should get moving, but he couldn’t help but feel he’d only just found his family only to have them slip through his fingers, and the lure of peeking into their past was too great.

   He stared open mouthed as he saw himself waving on the beach as a small child, him and Sarah opening Christmas and Birthday presents, weddings of people he didn’t know (and one that looked suspiciously like Sirius’), his parents at parties, in the garden, holding him as a baby. There were odd ones Harry recognised from his treasured photo album – his mum and dad’s portraits from graduation for example – however there was one photograph in particular that had caught his eye. He was staring at a simple shot, one that looked like it had been taken in a studio with a cream background, a format he recognised from Dudley’s many photo sessions Aunt Petunia had insisted on over the years. There were four people in the portrait; his family, the Potters. It could only have been taken a few months ago. They beamed and waved at the camera. Harry poked Sarah in the ribs, Sarah went to poke him back but James told them off so they went back to posing again. Lily took James’ hand and leant her head on his shoulder.

   It was so relaxed, so ordinary. Without really thinking, Harry slipped the photo out of the frame and put it in his pocket. After only just meeting his parents, he was loathed to abandon them now. Maybe this way he would still feel a little connected, no matter where Malfoy took him.

   The bathroom door opened suddenly and Harry jumped, feeling guilty for his theft. But as he snapped his head over to look he was met by the equally guilty face of Draco Malfoy, rubbing his wet hair with a towel. “Oh,” he said, looking at the towel as if it were the crown jewels. “Your mum, she said I should take five minutes to, um…” He trailed off. His clothes were clean too now and at least some attempt had been taken to mend them. He hastily rolled his sleeves down over what looked like a series of pale white scars along his forearms. “I needed to make a certain kind of portkey, she said she’d be quicker and gave me a-” he held up the towel, then decided he didn’t want it anymore and threw it back into the damp bathroom.

   “Sure,” said Harry, feeling awkward, then noticed the knuckles on Malfoy’s right hand were scraped and had a sheen of fresh blood on them. “You, er, get into it with Seamus again?”

   Hastily, Malfoy covered the injured hand with the other one. “Oh, your wall. It sort of…got in the way of my fist.”

   “Right,” said Harry, not really sure what to say, and Malfoy pulled at one of the threads still hanging from his sleeve. “You ready then?”

   Malfoy shrugged. “I guess so,” he said flexing his hurt hand; Harry wondered why he didn’t just heal it. His socks were miss-matched, and he dragged one of his big toes along the carpet. “Look,” he said, raising his eyes to meet Harry’s. “This wasn’t my idea you know, there wasn’t really anyone else they could send, and I needed some time alone, so, I know, things are…” he seemed to be struggling for the words. “I know we’re not friends,” he said after a moment. “But I appreciate you going out on a limb like this. It’ll make things much easier.”

   Harry had never heard so many civil words from him, not a single sneer or eye roll throughout the whole speech. He was taken aback. “Right,” he said, awkwardly pawing the photo that felt like a hot potato in his back pocket. “Well, I just want to save my sister, I’m not sure about anything else.”

   Malfoy pressed his lips together. “Yeah,” he said in a reserved sort of tone. “Sure.”

   “I mean,” said Harry quickly. “It’s not like I don’t want to help – with You-Know-Who – I’m just not sure what I’ll be able to do.” But Malfoy was close to scowling again, like he would if he had the energy.

   “Whatever,” he said, shaking his head. “Let’s just get going yeah, before your dad changes his mind and calls the Ministry on me.”

   Harry would have liked to argue he wouldn’t do that, but James’ reputation of being hot-tempered and not necessarily the first to think before he’d act appeared to be true. “Okay,” he said, and turned to lead the way down the stairs.

   When they reached the landing Harry could see almost right away that his dad and Sirius were sat side by side on the sofa, hands clasped between their knees, not speaking and looking pensive. Harry could feel Malfoy bristle at the sight of them. “I’ll…just go help your mum,” he said, and turned on his heels to head towards the library where Harry guessed Lily was working on the portkey Malfoy had mentioned.

   James watched him go, rocking back and forth slightly. “Harry,” he said, once he heard the door slam from down the corridor. “I’m not happy about this.”

   “I know,” he said, coming into the lounge and letting his bag drop to the floor. “Believe me it’s not what I was planning on doing with my night either, but Malfoy’s right. It’s the only way.”

   “But you’re just a child,” protested Sirius, looking at his best friend sadly. “This isn’t right.”

   “You don’t have to tell me,” said Harry, perching on the arm of the chair adjacent to them. “But I’m okay with this, really.” He felt that lump rise in his throat again. “Anything I can do to help Sarah has got to be the right thing.”

   James sighed and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and middle finger. “She must be so scared,” he said through as clenched jaw.

   “I’ll get her back,” Harry assured him.

   “And what about you?” his dad demanded in return.

   Harry wanted to tell him, how he’d been through more than he ever could have imagined, that he could do this. He couldn’t even tell him was top of his Defence Against the Dark Arts class for heaven’s sake. “I can hold my own,” he said firmly instead.

   Sirius squeezed James’ shoulder. “He’s his father’s son,” he said, and something in Harry swelled. “I’m not saying the whole situation sucks, but…” He looked and Harry and smiled. “I’ve got faith in the little scamp.”

   But James wouldn’t let his mood be lightened. “You must think I’m such a fool,” he said to Harry, shaking his head.

   “No I don’t,” said Harry, not sure what he was talking about but it seemed like the right thing to say.

   “But, Peter,” said his dad, and then he understood. “All those years. Your mum’s right, I’m the one who let him into our home-”

   His voice constricted, and Harry felt his heart twang. “No,” he said firmly. “He fooled everyone, the only person to blame here is him.”

   “He certainly had me going,” growled Sirius ruefully. “We should have known.”

   Harry felt strange, like he had the upper hand, knowing Wormtail’s alternate history like he did. “All that matters now is finding Sarah,” he said with determination. “And I will, with Malfoy leading the way, I will find her, one way or another.”

   “You just be careful,” said James heavily. “You watch your back with him. As if it wasn’t enough of a worry, you going to find a bunch of Death Eaters, on purpose, you’ve got one _with_ you.”

   “I’ll watch my back,” said Harry, nodding.

   James sighed then stood up. “I wish I could convince you,” he said. “But you’re right I can’t see any other way, not one that wouldn’t risk Sarah’s life.” He grimaced as Sirius got up too, and he pulled something out of his pocket. “I got this from her room,” he said, holding up a wand for Harry to take. “Just…try and get it back to her okay?”

   Harry could feel the responsibility rolling off the little stick of wood, but he reached out for it all the same. “I will,” he said, willing his voice not to shake.

   “James?”

   The two Potter men looked suddenly to the hallway, where Lily was standing in the archway. Her hands by her thighs were so tightly entwined the knuckles were going white, and her face was pale and drawn against her red hair. She just stared at James, her eyes glassy with tears threatening to fall.

   “I’m sorry,” she said after the moments stretched out.

   James’ shoulders slumped and his expression softened. “I’m sorry too,” he said, opening his arms for her to fall into, and they clung to each other as if for dear life. Harry took a step back and found himself next to Sirius, who put his hand on his shoulder.

   “You okay mate?” he whispered as his parents embraced.

   Harry sighed. “No, not really,” he admitted.

   James was stroking Lily’s hair as her whole body shook. “I’m just so worried about her,” she said.

   “I know,” he replied heavily. “We just have to do what we can.”

   “I’ve already owled Kingsley at the Ministry,” said Sirius to Lily, who wiped her eyes and moved back from James, though still kept hold of his hand. “And McGonagall, she’ll consult with Dumbledore and should be over within the hour. I’m sure between us we’ll think of something.”

   But Harry was shaking his head. “I’ll get her back, I promise. We can’t risk you guys setting off any alarms.”

   Lily swallowed at looked at Harry. “But if we can help before you get there-”

   “Then great,” Harry interrupted. “But…” he tried to find the right words to say. “I think I’m more prepared for this than you realise, I’ll be okay.”

   His mum took in a shuddery breath. “I want you to just find her and get out, do you hear me?” She glanced over her shoulder back towards the library. “I don’t care what Draco Malfoy wants of you, or anyone else at this Freiheit. And I don’t care how good you think you are at whatever Sirius has been teaching you.” She glanced as his godfather. “If you can, you just get out of there, promise me, don’t go looking for trouble.”

   “I promise,” said Harry solemnly, though he wasn’t sure if he really meant it. Trouble seemed to find him no matter how hard he tried to fob it off.

   Lily sighed, as if by making him swear she had protected him somehow. “Right, okay,” she said, trying to regain some composure. “I thought I’d make you some food to take with you whilst Remus is finishing the Portkey, you want to help me?”

   Harry glanced at Sirius and his dad, and gave them both a weak smile. “Sure,” he said, and followed his mum into the kitchen. She waved her wand about, and within a minute there were knives hovering over the counter, slicing bananas and spreading honey on what quickly turned out to be a whole loaf’s worth of sandwiches. She took Harry’s rucksack and began firing in chocolate bars, fruit and biscuits, before turning to the counter and starting on a fresh loaf that she attacked with beef and horseradish.

   Harry mostly just watched and kept her silent company; she was too preoccupied for casual conversation, and had already rubbed honey into her hair and all over her jeans. His own thoughts kept him busy enough, worrying not for his own safely all that much, but that he would be able to reunite his parents with their little girl. Whether he could get to her in time. That Malfoy wouldn’t betray him and this was all just some elaborate trap.

   The back door swung open, breaking him from his thoughts and grabbing his attention. Seamus and Parvati walked in, bringing a gust of cold night air laced with cigarette smoke, followed by Hermione who looked like she was doing her best not to cough. “Hey,” said Seamus soberly as Parvati stomped her feet on the mat and Hermione closed the door.

   “Hey,” said Harry, unfamiliar with their relationship and not sure how exactly to act. “You, um, pop out for a fag?”

   “We were showing Hermione some magic,” said Parvati, looking over at her new girlfriend with admiration. “She wasn’t so good with Seamus’ wand, but with mine she was able to do quite a few things really quickly.”

   Hermione looked as if she knew it wasn’t the right time for pride, but her small smile did convey a little pleasure as she rubbed her cold hands together. “I like how the words are Latin based,” she said demurely.

   Harry hadn’t ever thought about where magic words came from, but he didn’t know any Latin either so he guessed he wouldn’t appreciate it anyway.

   “Okay,” said Lily nodding as the last of the sandwich piles were wrapped in tinfoil. “I think that’ll probably do.” Harry couldn’t agree more as she added four bottles of pumpkin juice to his bag, and thought maybe he’d eat something sooner rather than later, if only for the sake of his back.

   The sound of movement drew them all into the lounge again, where Malfoy and Remus had returned, and a battered looking flower pot with gnomes scampering along the rim sat out of place on the coffee table.

   “Are you ready?” asked Malfoy without any preamble.

   But Harry sort of appreciated that, and nodded. He wanted to get going before his parents came to their senses and stopped their teenage son from heading into a mess of danger. Malfoy nodded back and picked up the flower pot, then headed back into the hallway to get his coat, leading people to naturally gravitate towards the front door.

   But Harry glanced at Hermione, and then at Sirius who was hanging back, and thought of something. “Um, Sirius,” he said, touching his elbow. “Can I have a quick word, in the kitchen?”

   Sirius took a moment to consider James, but he was already out in the hallway, staring at his feet pensively. “Sure mate,” he said, and moved back into the other room with Harry.

   “I need you to do me a favour,” he said hurriedly. “I can’t explain, but Hermione can help you. I need you to do some research.”

   Sirius raised his eyebrows. “Now?”

   “It’s really important, and you said McGonagall wouldn’t be here for an hour didn’t you?”

   Sirius waggled his head. “Yeah I guess so, is this to do with Sarah?”

   Harry considered lying, but didn’t. “No,” he said simply. “I can’t really tell you what it’s about, and neither can Hermione, so don’t ask her. But do you believe me when I say it’s important?”

   Sirius considered him for a moment, then nodded.

“I need you to find anything you can on parallel universes, alternate dimensions, anything like that.”

   Sirius’ mouth dropped open, but he was cut off from speaking by Remus’ voice calling through the house. “Harry, are you okay?”

   “Coming,” Harry assured, and hoped they would just think he was nervous. “Don’t tell my parents,” he said as they edged back into the lounge. “Just Hermione, okay?”

   “Harry,” said Sirius. “You mean fictional alternate universes, right?”

   But Harry shook his head. “No,” he admitted. “Anything you can find to suggest they’re real. That maybe...people can move from one to the other. Can you do it?”

   Sirius looked bewildered, but he nodded, and Harry was able to walk into the cramped hallway with just a tiny amount of relief, despite all the eyes on him. Maybe by the time he came back, Sirius might have been able to discover something that would help him work out how he got here, or, more importantly, how he could get home again.

   He shrugged his coat back on and scooped up his rucksack as Lily flung scarves around both him and Malfoy. “You be careful,” she told him again fiercely, and kissed his forehead.

   James didn’t say anything, just gave him a firm hug, and Remus nodded encouragingly. “We’ll be right behind you,” he said, looking at the other adults. “If we can, if we work out anything that might help.”

   Harry nodded back, and gave a last glance at Sirius, who gave him one, single nod of assurance. He would do what Harry asked, only because he had asked it. The trust was evident, and it made Harry both happy and sad all at once.

   “Okay Malfoy,” he said, turning to his unlikely travelling companion. “Lead the way.”

   James took hold of Malfoy’s arm, and the two locked eyes aggressively for just a moment. “If anything happens to my son,” he began, but Malfoy shrugged him off.

   “Then it won’t have been anything to do with me,” he replied coldly. “Like it or not we’re in this together.”

   “Please be careful,” said Lily again, and included Malfoy in her address.

   “Let’s go,” said Harry.

   “We’ll walk you out,” said Seamus, indicating himself and the two girls. Harry wasn’t sure that was necessary, but Parvati was already opening the front door.

   “Let the kids have their moment, said Remus quietly, resting his hand on Lily’s back and leading the four adults back into the longue. Harry realised Seamus, Parvati and Hermione all had their coats still on from where they’d been in the back garden, and Parvati was already stepping out onto the front porch.

   Harry was actually very touched that they would see him off, and it might give him a chance to mention to Hermione about Sirius. So he gave a thunderous looking Malfoy a nod, and followed Parvati out.

   “Okay, but make it quick,” snipped Malfoy from behind him, and Harry turned to see Hermione step outside as well, then Seamus close the door right behind him.

   “So,” said the Irish boy cheerfully and rubbing his hands. “Which way?”

   Harry raised his eyes at Malfoy. He sighed, irritated, and jerked his head to the road at the end of the path lined by trees. “We’ll take the Knight Bus for the first part.”

   “Excellent,” said Seamus. “Because we’re coming with you.”

 

***

 

   “What?” exclaimed Harry, too stunned to fully comprehend.

   “Absolutely not,” said Malfoy. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

   “I’m not,” said Seamus, and started walking down the path.

   “But,” said Harry, looking back towards the house. “You can’t, I mean...it’s not...”

   “We can help,” said Hermione assuredly, and took Harry’s hand.

   Malfoy looked as if he wasn’t sure if his anger or his incredulity was going to get the better of him. “This isn’t _homework!”_ he all but shouted. “This is serious!”

   “This is dangerous!” cried Harry.

   “Shh,” scolded Seamus, turning around and walking backwards and indicating the house. “They’ll hear.”

   Parvati clapped Harry on the shoulder. “You didn’t think we’d abandon you did you?” She exhaled, then started walking up the path as well. Malfoy all but growled, then followed.

   “You are not coming, over my dead body.”

   “That could be arranged,” said Seamus over his shoulder.

   Malfoy scowled as Harry caught up to him, Hermione still by his side but he’d dropped her hand. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her right now. He wasn’t all that surprised she wanted to help, but there was no way he was letting her come. What were they thinking?

   “This isn’t a joke, Finnigan,” said Malfoy.

   “Exactly,” said Parvati. “Which is why the more help you can get, the better.”

   “We’re not tagged,” said Hermione as the group reached the end of the path, the same spot Sarah had been taken by Wormtail less than an hour ago.

   “You’re not trained either,” said Malfoy. “And you only just found out you were a witch, what, five minutes ago?” He gave Harry a sideways look. He could tell he wanted to know more about Hermione being there, but Harry wasn’t going to explain any more than he had to.

   “Look,” said Harry. “I know you guys want to help, and I’m really touched, but this isn’t going to be easy. In fact I’m pretty sure it’s going to be near impossible and we both might die.”

   “Or worse,” added Malfoy ominously.

   Harry raised an eyebrow. “Thanks,” he said dryly. “The point is I’m not putting you in harm’s way.”

   “And I’m not leaving you with only Malfoy to cover your back!” argued Seamus, giving the Slytherin a disdainful look. “We know just as much magic as you, and surely five people has to better than two – what if you need to split up, or make a human pyramid?”

   “If you don’t trust me,” said Malfoy, glancing at his watch on the hand with the scuffed knuckles. “Then that’s your problem. We haven’t got time for this.”

   “Harry,” said Hermione directly to him. “Please let me help you, please. It’s not that I want to go to a dangerous place, I understand these people are the bad guys, but I can’t just stand by, not after what you did for me this evening.” She shook her curls off her shoulders and held her hands up. “You’ve _literally_ changed my whole life, I’ll never be the same again.”

   “But you don’t even have a wand,” argued Harry back, feeling bad. “You don’t know any spells!”

   “She does now,” said Parvati smugly. “I told you.”

   “Shut up Patil,” said Malfoy. “A couple of first year incantations aren’t going to do jack against half a dozen Death Eaters who’ll no doubt recognise her much quicker than I did.”

   Hermione paled but her determination didn’t waver, much to Harry’s dismay. “So I don’t know much magic, big deal. I have a Level 23 Paladin, so I know a thing or two about strategising I can tell you.” She jutted her chin at Malfoy. “Not to mention field medicine, survival techniques, orienteering. I’m probably more equipped than both of you!”

   Harry exchanged a look with Malfoy. He hadn’t thought about any of those other things. He knew far better than to disregard Hermione’s intelligence and know-how, maybe she could be an asset to them?

   “Well it’s not up to you,” said Parvati in a prissy tone, folding her arms and not looking at Malfoy. “It’s up to Harry.”

   “And I still say no,” said Harry, shaking his head and dismissing his previous thought. “Look, I’m sorry, I really appreciate what you’re doing but you have no idea what these people are capable of.”

   “And you do?” countered Seamus. “You’ve fought so many Death Eaters?”

   Harry wanted to tell him how very true that was.

   “I don’t have a choice,” he said instead, “My sister, my prophecy, my problem.”

   “Wrong,” said Seamus. “What kind of friends would we be if we just let you do this alone? No one else can help, Malfoy said, anyone of age is tagged. We’re your only option.”

   “No,” said Malfoy pointedly. “Our other option is to go alone, and that’s what we’ll be doing. You’ll only get in the way.”

   “Do you think my parents just let us sit and home and paint our nails for the past three years?” snapped Parvati, rounding on him. “I am not some illiterate child, I’ll have you know I am excellent at Charms and Potions, and like Seamus said, Harry is our friend, we are not going to abandon him just because it’s dangerous. Everything’s dangerous nowadays.”

   “You can’t argue with the numbers,” said Seamus. “You’re saying Harry has some special...” he waved his hands around. “Thing or whatever with You-Know-Who, that he’s from some special bloodline and is destined to fight him?” He dropped his hands. “Sounds like codswallop to me, but whilst you boys are twiddling your wands trying to figure it out, _mightn’t_ it be nice to have a couple of extra pairs of hands to look for Sarah?”

   Malfoy blew out a very impatient breath. “We’ll be just fine,” he said. “Won’t we Potter?”

   He looked at Harry for affirmation, but a doubt had flickered in his mind. If it came between rescuing Sarah or facing Voldemort, could he choose? Would he have the option to chose?

But what was he thinking, of letting them come just in case that happened? It was far more likely they would get into some life-threatening situation, what would they do then? They were so adamant all three of them about coming, not even a note of hesitation, but did they really understand the risk?

   Hermione was so inexperienced, she knew literally no magic, the worst she’d had to deal with up until this point were school bullies. Yet he never would have got the Philosopher’s Stone without her gall and logic back in their First Year. In his own world Seamus was fearless and Parvati tenacious he knew, and maybe as a team they would stand a better chance of coming out of this the other side.

   But it was dangerous, he knew he shouldn’t be considering their coming, it was selfish. It must have shown on his face, because Malfoy’s grey eyes widened. “Potter?” he said, half a question and half a threat.

   Harry made a snap decision. “We can talk about it more on the bus, we’re wasting time.” He took his wand and gave a single swoosh down with his full arm.

   Malfoy let out an infuriated cry. “You cannot be serious!” he cried as the rumble of the approaching bus filled the air.

   “Told you it was up to Harry,” gloated Parvati.

   Harry stepped away from the road, and pulled Hermione with him. “You might want to stand back,” he said.

   “Why, what’s hap-”

   Hermione’s question was cut short by a triple-decker, violently purple bus exploding from thin air and screeching to a halt in front of them.

   “Hang on, hang on!” cried Malfoy, turning away from the bus and pointing his wand at his head. _“Novo Etcapillus.”_ Within a blink of an eye, his hair changed from its usual snowy blond to black just as dark as Harry’s. The contrast was astonishing.

   “It just...” spluttered Hermione, almost swooning in shock at the bus’ sudden appearance. “Came out of...where did it come from!”

   The doors opened with the hiss of pistons and a familiar figure hopped out to greet the group. “Welcome to the Knight Bus!” said Stan Shunpike, the conductor of the bus in Harry’s own reality too. “Emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. My name is Stan Shunpike and I will be your conductor this evening.” He looked at the five teenagers dubiously. “’Ere,” he said, his accent slipping now his spiel was done. “Ain’t choo lot a bit young bein’ out so late?”

   “They’re with me,” said Malfoy with authority, producing some sort of identity card that Harry assumed to be fake if he was trying to prove he was old enough to be travelling after curfew. But it must have been a good one, because the lanky bus conductor shrugged and stepped aside.

   “Fair ‘nough, fair ‘nough,” he said, letting Draco on the bus.

   “Come on,” said Harry to Hermione, worrying she might give them away with her horrified expression.

   But she swallowed and managed to keep her composure as she and Harry stepped up into the purple vehicle. “Single to London,” said Malfoy. “Leicester Square.”

   “Right you are,” said the driver, who was not the man Harry had met before, an Ernie Prang, but a rather large black man with salt and pepper hair and rectangular glasses clinging to the end of his nose by a millimetre. “Eleven Sickles.”

   Malfoy stormed off once he had paid for his ticket and immediately headed for the steps that would take him up a level.

   “Er, two more for London,” said Harry, very glad he had picked up his wallet. He waited as Seamus and Parvati boarded and paid as well, then followed Malfoy as the bus gave a loud bang and went on its way again. He really hoped he was doing the right thing.

   “Where are the seats?”asked Parvati, looking around the first deck of the bus in confusion. She was quite right, there weren’t any seats for passengers, but rather two rows of single beds, readymade and laid end to end, though unfortunately not bolted down lamented Harry as the bus veered round a corner and sent everything scooting along several inches.  

   “You’ve not been on the night bus before?” he whispered as the couple of passengers tucked under the sheets scowled at them from under their night caps. Malfoy wasn’t anywhere to be seen, so Harry lead the group up to the second level on the narrow spiralling staircase.

   “No,” said Parvati, taken aback. “I didn’t realise you had?”

   Harry really needed to watch himself or he was going to put his foot in it; another reason to encourage Parvati and Seamus to leave. He had hardly any clue about their Harry’s life, and it seemed they were going to be quick to spot any slip ups. But the thought of sitting alone on the bus with Malfoy for who knew how long made him glad they were still with him, if at least only for now.

   “Er, yeah, once,” he said, hoping to keep it vague. Malfoy wasn’t on the second level, and there was only one other passenger who appeared to be asleep under his basset hound. “Let’s go up again.”

   They managed to keep their balance as they rounded the stairwell, heading up to the final deck of the bus. There was a wooden door sealing off this one, and as Harry’s trainers stomped up the steps it flew open. The peeved face of Draco Malfoy shot forward to meet him. “Come on,” he hissed. “What’s taking you guys so long?”

   Harry didn’t reply, just raised an eyebrow as he headed up the last few steps and onto the top level. There wasn’t anyone in these beds, and Malfoy had already thrown his scrappy satchel and the old flower pot onto one of them. He ushered the others in impatiently, then slammed the door shut. _“Colloportus,”_ he said, locking it, though any half wit with a wand could open it again, they weren’t dealing with Muggles here.

   “Who do you think that will keep out?” asked Harry sceptically.

   “It’s better than nothing,” snapped Malfoy.

   Harry rolled his eyes, and without thinking pointed his own wand at the wood. _“Protego Totalum,”_ he said, moving his arm with confidence. “Though if you’re expecting Death Eaters to come raining down on us, I’m not sure what spell could keep them out.”

   He turned back, and saw Seamus, Parvati and Malfoy all staring at him a little slack-jawed.

   “What?” he asked, feeling like something was stuck in his teeth.

   “Where’d you learn that?” said Seamus.

   ‘That’ was a fourth year Defence Against the Dark Arts Spell, and Harry was unnerved by how impressed they were with it. He rolled his wand in his hand. “Sirius taught me,” he said, remembering something his dad had said just before they had left.

   Oh, he thought, his parents were probably going ballistic by now. They were probably gearing up to come find Hermione and the others, they had to know they were missing by this point. But the Knight Bus had given them a good head start, and he still hadn’t made his mind up whether or not to insist they head home or stay.

   “What’s the plan Malfoy?” he asked, hoping to deflect their attention.

   “I’d rather you didn’t call me Malfoy,” he replied, rubbing his eyes.

   Seamus pulled a face, like he’d caught whiff of a bad smell. “What else would we call you?”

   Malfoy glared at them all, then blew out a puff of air and turned back to Harry. “When we get to the Leaky Cauldron, these lot can use the fireplace to travel home, then we’ll head on our way.”

   “What’s the Leaky Cauldron?” asked Hermione as Seamus and Parvati scowled, but rather than arguing, just looked to Harry.

   “A pub,” he said, just answering Hermione for the time being. “It connects Muggle London with Wizarding London.”

   She blinked and opened her brown eyes further. “There’s a Wizarding part of London?” she asked, fascinated.

   But Malfoy shook his hands irritably. “Finnigan and Patil can explain _aaall_ about it when you have your little sleepover at whichever house has the least angry parents, I really don’t care.”

   “You still don’t get it, do you Malfoy?” said Seamus.

   Malfoy clicked his teeth shut. “I don’t get half the things you say with that leprechaun accent of yours.”

   “Wait,” said Harry as the bus took another adventurous turn and they all grabbed for bed posts to grab hold of. “Let’s just stop for a second. Malfoy,” he said evenly. “They might have a point, they might be able to help.”

   “As what?” he demanded. “Bait? Cannon fodder?”

   “Why do you think we’re so useless!” screeched Parvati, and Harry half wished he’d put a silencer charm on the door as well. But the bus’ engine was so loud he hoped they’d be okay.

   Seamus stepped up to Malfoy. “We’re not backing down.”

   Malfoy screwed up his fists and face, before calming just a little. “I’m not saying you’re useless,” he told them diplomatically. “I’m simply pointing out that you two only did a year and a half at school, and Granger here thought she was a Muggle until tonight. We might have to deal with some pretty nasty things, it’s not safe and the more of us there are the slower we’ll be.”

   It was a pretty diplomatic argument from him for a change, but it didn’t dissuade the three tag-alongs anything much. “Harry’s had just as much of an education as us,” insisted Parvati.

   Malfoy blinked and held up his hand to Harry’s face. “He’s the Heir. Of Gryffindor.”

   “So, what?” asked Seamus. “He’s the messiah!”

   “That doesn’t give him special powers does it?” cried Parvati.

   Malfoy threw up his hands. “Apparently it does, or something like it. That’s what the prophecy says, something about bloodlines.”

   Harry shook his head. “That’s not the point,” and he meant it. That might have been _why_ Voldemort had tried to kill him as a baby, but it hadn’t helped him any of the times he’d faced him since. “Look, I’ve had more experience than you guys think,” he said, trying his hardest not to give too much away. “Sirius, Remus, my parents, they’ve all been, um, teaching me and stuff. The point here is whether or not you three should come with us.”

   “I don’t even understand why we’re discussing this,” said Malfoy as the bus popped up in another location and skidded to halt. Harry peeked out the window and saw they were in a narrow street of terraced houses, and all the parked cars had jumped up practically sideways on the pavement to make room for the enormous bus. A doddery old lady teetered towards the open door, and Stan jumped out to help her with her trunk and an empty birdcage.

   As they didn’t look to be in London, Harry turned his attention back to Malfoy. “Because, to be honest, I don’t fully trust you, why should I?”

   Malfoy glowered. “I’m on your side.”

   “So you say,” said Parvati. “Actions speak louder than words.”

   “And I just gave up Wormtail to you!” Malfoy growled. “I’ve trekked halfway across the country, I left my home to come and be insulted by the great Harry Potter & Co!”

   “I’m just saying,” continued Harry firmly. “That I would feel better having some people I do trust around, to balance things out.”

   Malfoy sneered. “You’re just too insecure to go anywhere without your little mates. I’m surprised Boot isn’t here as well, wowing us all with his infamous wit.”

   “He’s grounded,” said Seamus. “Lucky for you.”

   Malfoy rolled his eyes. “What, so you two could beat me up, put me in my place?”

   “We don’t need Terry for that,” said Parvati, a delighted sort of smile pulling at her mouth.

   The bus lurched away again, and Harry felt like they needed to reach a resolution before they got to Charring Cross Road. “Stop threatening each other,” he said sternly. “I don’t want you two here for intimidation tactics, I just…”

   Truth was he wasn’t sure about Seamus and Parvati. He was deeply tempted by Hermione’s intellect and practical know-how, but the other two were about as average as he was. It was more that they did seem to know this Malfoy better than he did, specific information from this reality that he was feeling could be of use.

   “They could help in other ways beside with magic,” he finished lamely.

   “How?” asked Malfoy coldly.

   Harry shrugged. “Well, I’m not sure _exactly._ If I knew where we were going-?”

   Malfoy sighed and shook his head. “I literally can’t tell you until we get there, I’m bound, the words won’t come out of my mouth. So you’ll _have_ to trust me when I say they can’t help, and they’ll just be in danger. But do you know what?” He waved his hand and sat down on his bed. “I’m getting really tired of this argument. If you want to come, be my bloody guest.” He laid down and covered his face with his arm, which Harry considered to be a very bold move with the daggers Seamus and Parvati were staring at him. “If you die a horrible, sticky death you will only have yourselves to blame.”

   And that was it. Harry looked between the others and Malfoy a couple of times, but Malfoy actually fell asleep before their eyes, his body going slack and his breathing getting softer.

   Parvati and Seamus didn’t seem to care though, they had already forgotten all about him and were just looking at Harry in anticipation.

   “So,” ventured Hermione. “You mean it, you’ll let us come.”

   Harry shook his head in defeat. “I really don’t get it,” he said. “But if you promise me you understand that this could be treacherous, that you could get hurt, that we might have to fight for our lives…” He blew out a long breath. “Then I guess there’s nothing I can do to stop you.”

 

***

 

   They’d been on the bus long enough for the rest of them to find beds to perch on; Seamus and Parvati on one, Harry and Hermione on another. Parvati kept eyeing up Hermione, but when the other girl looked round she’d suddenly smile and nod, but Harry felt like something was maybe amiss.

   Other than the obvious.

   Hermione had been a little sheepish in their victory, but Seamus and Parvati seemed smug, like they’d been allowed to come on a grand adventure. Harry wasn’t sure if he’d made the right decision or not, but he felt they were going to be near impossible to dissuade now, short of tying them down they were officially part of the expedition.

   “Are you cross?” asked Hermione in hushed tones. They were a few beds away from the others, but they still might have been able to hear them over the bouncing bus sounds and thrum of the engine.

   Harry took a moment to realise she’d spoken, he was so wound up in his thoughts. “Cross?” he repeated. “No, no, not cross at all, I meant it, I’m incredibly touched you guys want to help.” He rubbed where his scar should have been on his forehead.   “I’m just worried, I don’t think anyone, including me, can fully comprehend what’s coming. This could get really hairy.”

   Hermione was pale and she swallowed. “I’m not going to lie,” she said after a moment’s consideration. “I am scared. I’ve never even snuck out of the house before, and now I don’t even know where we’re going, on a magic bus of all things.” She rolled her eyes and gave a little nervous laugh. “But I couldn’t have just gone home, left you to face this by yourself.”

   Harry felt a pang of guilt. “But you don’t know me?” he said, wondering where this faith in him was coming from.

Hermione bit her lip. “You’ve been more of a friend to me in the past few hours than I’ve ever had in my whole life.”

   Harry was tired. He was worried. He was scared. And those words made tears spring to the back of his eyes faster than he could blink. “I’ll always be your friend,” he said.

   She smiled, sadly. “What about the other you, if we succeed, if we get you home?”

   Harry hadn’t even considered that. “One step at a time,” he said. He glanced at Seamus and Parvati. Parvati was whispering to him non-stop and Seamus looked to be imitating Malfoy and struggling to keep his eyes open. “Besides, the other me can’t be that different, you’ll just have to explain it to him.”

   Harry doubted they’d be able to keep his true identity a secret for much longer, it was bound to come out at some point. Maybe if they could just make it until _after_ they had saved his sister and defeated the Death Eaters, that would be nice.

   “Hey,” he said, changing topics. “There’s something I want you to have, just for now.” He pulled out Sarah’s wand, and showed it to her.

   “I can’t take that,” said Hermione, obviously already knowing who it belonged to.

   Harry shrugged and still held it out. “I’m not saying you keep it. You can look after it for her, until we get her back. In the meantime it’ll just be sitting in my pocket, you might as well see if you can do anything with it?”

   Hermione bit her lip and looked at the small stick intently. It could only have been eight or so inches, and it was made of a dark wood with a smooth finish. She reached for it tentatively, and plucked it from Harry’s palm, letting it balance between her fingers.

   “If you’re sure?” she said.

   “Positive,” he assured her as she inspected it closer. “Besides, this way I can teach you a couple of spells that might come in handy.”

   “Are we allowed to practice up here?” she asked, and Harry couldn’t help but smile. Typical of Hermione to worry about breaking the rules, even in the midst of all this chaos.

   “I’m sure it’s fine. Now, I want you to move your hand like this.” He showed her a motion, and after a few attempts she managed to mimic him with confidence. “Good, good,” he told her, and she beamed. “This is a shield charm, it will block against a lot of standard magic. The word is _‘Protego’_ – give it a try.”

   _“Protego,”_ said Hermione, doing the motion, and a weak glimmer of light sprung up in front of her. “Did I do that!” she cried, causing Seamus and Parvati to look over. Parvati’s eyebrows shot up, and Seamus gave her a little round of applause.

   Harry nodded. “Looks like the wand’s not a bad match. Try it again,” he said encouragingly. “This time with more gusto.”

   “I don’t want to wake up Draco,” she said, flicking her eyes over at Malfoy’s sleeping form.

   “Ah who cares,” said Seamus a little louder than was perhaps necessary. “Give him a scare, it’ll be funny.”

   But Malfoy didn’t wake up, no matter what noise they or their magic made. After a few minutes Seamus and Parvati came and joined them, thinking of other spells Hermione could learn. She picked up a great deal in the fifteen or so minutes they were practicing, but Harry wasn’t surprised, and he even felt a little better about agreeing to let her stick with them.

   The bus vaulted forwards again, and in the blink of an eye the windows outside were filled with neon lights and the sound of honking horns filtering through the glass, loud enough to make Harry jump. He could also make out a couple of thumping bass lines as he darted over and looked outside, taking in the bustling streets, even though it was around eleven at night. There were brightly coloured bars, pizza vendors offering dozens of toppings, cinemas showing the latest blockbusters and an illuminated fountain that some people looked dangerously close to falling in.

   “I’m guessing we’re in London,” he said as Seamus and Parvati darted back to where they’d been sitting to hurriedly pull their coats back on and grab their belongings.

   Hermione gaped down at the pavement in awe as she snatched up her bag and Harry strode over to Malfoy, who was apparently still sleeping fretfully, twitching on top of the covers.

   There was a sharp knock at the door, and everybody froze where they stood. “Hello? Mr Ward sir?” came the voice of Stan Shunpike. “We’re at Leicester Square. Can I help with your luggage?”

   “Ward?” said Seamus.

   Harry shrugged. “The name on Malfoy’s i.d.?”

   And then Stan tried the door.

“Oi!” he called, rattling the handle. “Why’s ‘is locked? What choo doin’!”

   Harry was about to unlock it, when he looked down at Malfoy. The spell he’d used on his hair was obviously fading, and was almost half streaked with white blond again, making him resemble a badger or a skunk. As dim as Stan was, he was bound to notice that.

   “Er, just a minute!” Harry called, before turning and sitting on the edge of the bed. “Malfoy wake up,” he hissed, giving him a light shake.

   He was obviously in the grip of some dream though, sweat was beading on his forehead, dampening his two-tone hair as well as the pillow. His face was screwed up and his breathing shallow and fast. “Malfoy,” Harry tried again. He didn’t know the spell he’d used on his hair and Stan was going to bang the door down any second. “Malfoy,” he tried again, giving him another shake. “Malfoy – Draco!”

Malfoy shot up, limbs flailing and right fist swinging right at Harry’s face. Years of dodging fast flying balls on the Quidditch pitch snapped Harry’s head back just in time, and he snatched Malfoy’s wrist to stop him going any further.

   “Oi!” cried Stan through the wood. “You need to open this door, or, um, I’ll call the Ministry! Do you hear me, I’ll-”

   _“I’m not decent!”_ shrieked Hermione, and instantly turned a dark shade of pink. Parvati looked shocked, and Seamus grinned in approval.

   “Oh,” stuttered Stan. “Oh, yes, of course miss, I’m so sorry.”

   Hermione couldn’t seem to look at anyone. “It’s quite alright,” she said, and cleared her throat, pulling at her hair. “I’ll, uh, just need a minute.”

   “Malfoy,” said Harry as the other boy continued to breath extremely fast, but his blinking eyes seemed to be focusing and remembering where he was. “Malfoy your hair.”

   “My what?” said Malfoy, trying to steady his breaths, his eyes looking at where Harry was holding his still-bloodied hand to stop the punch to his face.

   “Your hair,” said Harry. “It’s reversing.”

   Malfoy just blinked once more, then finally understood. Harry let him go and he grabbed his wand from where he’d jammed it under the pillow, aiming it at his head. _“Novo Etcapillus,”_ he said, and the black melted over the white like ink running down parchment. “Done?” he asked.

   “Done,” Harry replied.

   The two of the moved hurriedly from the bed; Malfoy scooped up the flower pot and flung his satchel around his neck again as Harry fired the counter-jinx at the door. Stan was standing awkwardly on the other side, arms folded, left foot swinging off the top step. He jumped to attention at the sight of Harry. “Right,” he said, not sure where to look. “Do you...need me to carry anyfing?”

   Harry shook his head. “We’re fine thanks.”

   Stan nodded. “Okey dokey then, er, this way then.”

   The group traipsed down after the gangly conductor, earning several glares from other passengers on the lower levels for holding the bus up, and all in all Harry was quite relieved when they hoped down onto the pavement, and watched as the bus vanished once again.

   “Well,” said Seamus. “That was fun.”

   “Come on,” said Malfoy, turning the collar of his coat up as the wind tore through Leicester Square and made a gaggle of girls smoking near a club entrance squeal and shiver in their tiny, sparkly dresses. “This way.”

   He led them towards Charring Cross Road, weaving between tourists and clubbers, avoiding the puddles reflecting back all the colours from the neon lights overhead. Harry soon recognised a few buildings as they moved to a slightly less busy street, and up ahead stood The Leakey Cauldron.

   “Is that it?” asked Hermione as they neared the pub, and Harry nodded.

   “I take it we’re going to Diagon Alley?” he asked Malfoy.

   “Yeah,” Malfoy replied, a little distracted, and shifted the weight of the old flower pot in his arm. Harry had assumed it was the portkey he’d mentioned, the one his mum had helped him with, but he didn’t understand why they hadn’t just activated it at the house. Malfoy was still bound by magic though, and wouldn’t be able to answer him if he asked why, so he just had to trust he’d find out in a while.

   Trusting Malfoy with anything made him uncomfortable to say the least.

   “What if someone recognises you Malfoy?” said Parvati from behind her scarf, and he turned to scowl at her.

   “Well,” he said scathingly. “It might help if you didn’t call me Malfoy, like I asked, mightn’t it?”

   “What can we call you instead then?” asked Seamus cheerfully as they approached the pub’s door. “Git Face? Troll Bait? Lord of…”

   Seamus’ voice died in his throat as Malfoy pushed the door inwards and they stepped over the threshold into the shelter of the pub’s walls. It was dim inside, and no one was sat at any of the tables. Tom, the innkeeper, was wiping down the bar, and didn’t bother to look up to great them. “We’re closed,” he said in an unusually frosty manner.

   “We just need to get the courtyard,” said Malfoy, flattening the back of his still black hair as the door mercifully swung shut again and gave them a moment’s rest from the wind.

   Tom was concentrating on a particularly stubborn stain and still didn’t look up, only jerking his head towards the back to show he’d heard. “Go on then, you know where it is I suppose?”

   “We’re fine,” said Malfoy, already walking across the room to the back door, and Harry followed after him, wondering what had happened to make the usually friendly Tom so dour. Maybe he’d just had a bad night, Harry reasoned. Or, knowing what he did of this world, maybe something more sinister had happened. He didn’t get a chance to find out.

   They walked by the toilets, one of which was moaning disconcertingly, and Malfoy leant into the rear door that would take them to the courtyard without pause. The breeze hit them with force again, and Harry sucked the air through his teeth, tingling the nerves. “Will any of these places be open either?” he asked as they fanned out into the small little square of paving, sealed off on all sides by walls eight feet high.

   “Where we’re going never shuts,” said Malfoy and no more, though Harry was impressed he was able to give him that much. The other boy waited until they were all outside once more and the door firmly shut, then pulled out his wand to tap the bricks in the order Harry was used to from his own world. It was nice to see not everything was different here.

   “This is Diagon Alley,” he said to Hermione as the bricks started to spin and move, creating an archway that lead into the heart of Wizarding London. She gaped first at the way the bricks whizzed and changed, then at the sight that lay beyond.

   “Wow,” she said, full of wonder as she followed on in after Malfoy, but Harry had to say he was less impressed. Even from where they were, he could already see several of the shops were boarded up, and there was a good deal of litter accumulated in the gutters.

   “It’s normally not so...run down,” he said to her, hearing the bricks scrape against each other as they put themselves back in place.

   Seamus shrugged and walked ahead along the eerily quiet street. “Looks about right to me.”

   “I’ve never seen it at night before,” said Parvati, looking at all the shop fronts with their doors locked and shutters across. “It’s creepier.”

   “Keep your voices down,” instructed Malfoy, glancing up at the flats above the stores. Harry could see some lights on behind the curtains, but a lot were as dark as the street.

   There were a string of gaslights that ran along the main street, but they only gave off a faint green glow. Harry’s eyes were getting used to the gloom though, and he could read the signs on the familiar shops now as they passed.

   He inclined his head and caught Hermione’s eye. “That’s Flourish and Blotts,” he told her in a whisper. “Where you’ll get your magic books from, and over there’s Ollivanders, the only place to get wands from.”

   Hermione stared at the closed shop with longing. “So, I could maybe have me own wand?”

   “Don’t see why not,” Harry said. “Now you know you’re a witch, seems unfair not to let you practise magic.”

   Hermione spent the rest of the walk deep in thought. Harry was glad he’d been able to show her this, even if was under such unpleasant circumstances. He remembered his first trip to Diagon Alley vividly, and how that to him was the moment he’d really believed what Hagrid had told him; that he was a wizard, that his life had just changed forever.

He hoped Hermione’s life had changed forever. He hoped the Ministry wouldn’t erase her memory after all this was done, just because she was Muggle-born. Quite frankly though, he wouldn’t put anything past them at the moment.

   Malfoy made to turn left down another alleyway, and Parvati stopped dead. “Knockturn Alley?” she asked, looking between it and Malfoy, who had also stopped. “I’m not going down there.”

   “Okay then,” said Malfoy in something close to a cheery tone. “See you later.”

   He turned back around and headed into the shadows of the unlit alley, and Harry couldn’t blame Parvati for her trepidation. “What’s down there?” asked Hermione as the other girl clenched her jaw and looked back over her shoulder at the way they had just come.

   “It’s a bit dodgy,” admitted Harry. “It’s okay if you want to head back to the pub. You could still Floo back home?” he added hopefully.

   But Seamus scoffed. “It’s not that dodgy,” he said as if it was obvious and started following Malfoy. “Just if someone offers you anything that looks like human thumbs, tell them you’re cutting down and they’ll leave you alone.”

   Parvati rolled her eyes and looked to Harry, who raised his brow questioningly. Hermione had already started following the other two boys, so Parvati huffed and did the same, and Harry resigned himself that he really wasn’t going to be able to persuade any of them to head back to where it was safe.

   They passed Borgin and Burkes, the shop Harry had ended up in two and a half years ago by accident, and was pleased when Malfoy showed no interest in going inside it. Instead, he paused outside a dingy teashop called The Botched Brew; it had a great crack running across its window but there was a glow coming from behind the yellow net curtains to indicate that this place, unlike anywhere else they had passed, was indeed open.

   Malfoy only checked that Harry was still with him, then creaked open the wooden door to venture inside. Parvati, apparently wanting to redeem herself for her moment of doubt, pushed ahead after him, followed by Seamus and then Hermione and Harry. The door had a little bell above it, so it tinkled as they came in from the wind, but that was only cosy aspect of the entire shop beyond that. The small round tables were all made of a dark, polished wood that looked like they’d never had a tea cup placed on them in their whole existence, and portraits hung on the wall of hooded figures that looked down on them with a sinister interest.

   “Are you lost?” croaked an old hag, rubbing under her eye patch.

   “Ignore them,” said Malfoy flatly.

   There was a Chinese girl that couldn’t have been much older than them standing behind the bar, leaning her elbows on the counter. She had been reading a book, but now she looked up, unimpressed.   Malfoy had already turned his back to her to face the others, and Harry realised he recognised the girl from school. She was a Slytherin that had already graduated. “Do you know her?” Harry asked, looking at Malfoy’s hair. It was still black but would that be enough to fool her?

   “In passing,” he said in hushed tones. “But it might be best if someone else goes and speaks to her.”

   “What are we doing here at all?” asked Seamus.

   Malfoy glanced to a door to his right, at the end of the bar. “We need a private parlour,” he said.

   “I’ll do it,” said Hermione but with a little hesitation. But then she smiled and gave Harry a nod. “Non-magical job,” she said, and walked over to greet the girl. Harry worried this might not be a good idea, but within a moment Hermione came back with a key hanging from a rabbit foot pendant. “She said we can have room number seven.” She proudly offered the key out to Malfoy, who took it without saying thank you and marched over to the door he had looked at before.

   Hermione looked a little hurt, but Harry rubbed her arm. “Well done,” he said and hoped it didn’t sound patronising. This Hermione was so timid he genuinely was impressed that she would volunteer to go speak to any stranger, let alone one in Knockturn Alley.

   They followed after Malfoy, not keen to stay any longer under the glare of the Slytherin girl, and he used the key to unlock the door. It led to a corridor with more doors heading off it on the left and the right, and Malfoy made straight for the one with a number seven attached above the peep hole. He used the key once again, unlocking the door and letting it swing inwards.

   There was nothing but a circular table inside surrounded by six chairs, all made of the same dark wood used in the main parlour of the tea shop. Harry guessed maybe it was set up for card games or something, but Malfoy was already pulling the chairs out. “Help me move this,” he said to no one in particular, placing the flower pot on the carpet and wrapping his fingers around the table’s edge.

   “Should we lock the door?” Parvati asked as Harry took the other end of the table, and between them he and Malfoy managed to shift it over to the side of the room, leaving an area of free space that they could all stand comfortably in.

   “No point,” said Malfoy, dropping the key onto the table with a clunk and picking up the pot again. “We won’t be here long enough.”

   Hermione frowned and took in the room, which was bare aside from the tables and chairs. “What’s in here?” she asked.

   “Nothing,” said Malfoy. “It’s the where that matters, not the what.”

   “What’s the flower pot got to do with it?” asked Parvati, pointing to it and eyeing up the scampering gnomes suspiciously.

   “Portkey,” Malfoy told her. “Anyone that wants to carry on with us needs to be holding on.” He looked pointedly at Seamus. “Feel free to take this moment to tie your shoelaces.”

   “You wish,” said the Irish boy, and took a firm grip of the lip. Parvati equally grabbed the pottery, and Harry glanced at Hermione to see if she would accept one last chance to persuade her to stay.

   “What’s a Portkey?” she asked.

   “You hold it, and it transports you somewhere,” said Malfoy.

   Hermione raised her eyebrows. “Like the fireplace?” she asked.

   “Fireplace can take you anywhere,” said Harry. “Portkeys are programmed with specific locations.”

   “And this one will take us to where Sarah is?” Hermione asked, reaching forward to touch the cracked paintwork.

   Malfoy opened his mouth, and struggled to get the words out. “Close enough,” he said eventually.

   Hermione nodded, and wrapped her fingers around next to Seamus’. Harry sighed. “This is it then?”

   Malfoy looked at him with his silvery grey eyes, the first hint of blond hair starting to show through once again. “Whenever you’re ready,” he said quietly. It wasn’t impatient though, more sincere than anything else.

   So Harry took a deep breath, and sized the base, next to where Malfoy’s hand was. He had his wand out already, so as soon as Harry had a good hold, he pointed it at the flower pot.

   _“Avercium,”_ he cried, and immediately the room exploded with light. Harry felt himself shoot up off the ground, the familiar sensation that there was a hook behind his navel. They didn’t transport right away though like a normal Portkey, they began to spin, the light becoming blinding and a roaring noise filling the air as they tore around like they were on a crazy funfair ride.

   “Malfoy!” shouted Harry in panic as they gained even more speed.

   “Just hold on!” he shouted back, but there was no danger of letting go, it was like Harry’s hand was glued to the ceramic.   Parvati was screaming, the whole room was a blur and Harry felt like his shoes were going to come flying off.

   Just when he thought they couldn’t take much more, the hook sensation in his belly tugged, and they vanished from the room at The Botched Brew.

   In an instant, they fell to the ground once more in a dishevelled heap. The wind hit them before they’d even landed, telling Harry they were back outside, and their fall was cushioned by a foot deep blanket of snow on the frozen ground. With a gasp he rolled over and untangled himself from Malfoy’s legs, his teeth already chattering and shoved his hands under his armpits, his clothes already damp from snow.

   “Malfoy!” he cried over the roaring wind. “Where have you taken us!”

   Malfoy had jumped to his feet as the other three scrambled up out of the snow. He tossed the flower pot aside, not caring that it bounced and cracked, and Harry guessed it must have served its purpose. They were looking down into a valley from halfway up a hill, but on the other side loomed an even greater mountain just visible in the moonlight. From the few twinkling lights and shadowy structures, it looked like there was a small town or village at the base on the mountain, but it didn’t exactly look like Voldemort’s stronghold.

   “It worked,” said Malfoy disbelieving but happy, and turned to Harry. “We’re here.”

   “Where’s here?” Harry shouted.

   Malfoy grinned before he replied, authentic pride and relief showing on his face despite the plummeting temperatures.

   “Germany,” he said. “We’re in Germany.” And grinned even more.

 

***

 

   _“Germany!”_ cried Hermione.

   “Why are we in Germany!” demanded Seamus.

   “Where in Germany!” added Parvati.

   Hermione was standing rock still, horror plane all over her face. “I don’t have my passport,” she said, grabbing a bunch of her hair that was whipping all over the place in the wind. “I don’t…this is _illegal!”_

   But their reactions didn’t seem to be dampening Malfoy’s spirits any much. He was looking over triumphantly at the mountain, hands on his hips as the wind tossed his increasingly blond hair. “Come on,” he said, and began walking down the path that lead to the town.

   “Wait, hang on,” said Harry following him. “What’s going on?”

   Malfoy blew out a breath, like he’d been holding it since he’d arrived at Godric’s Hollow. “This is as close as we can get to You-Know-Who’s current hideout.” He shook his head, dislodging the snow that had settled there. “I honestly wasn’t sure if that Portkey would work.”

   “You-Know-Who is in Germany?” questioned Seamus.

   Malfoy shrugged. “Why not?” he said. “He’s got influence all over Europe now.”

   “Where in Germany?” asked Hermione, still visibly distressed. “Where are we now?”

   Malfoy thought a moment as they walked, picking their way around loose rocks and leafless bushes that were all collecting the falling snow. “The village down there is Huzenbach, and I think we’re near Freudenstadt. Somewhere in the south of the country anyway.”

   “Freudenstadt?” repeated Hermione, sounding like it meant something to her. “So that over there…” she stared over at the mountain. “That’s the Black Forest.”

   Again Malfoy seemed to think. “Yeah, I think that’s what it’s called, why?”

   Hermione looked at Harry, whether embarrassed or scared he couldn’t tell. “Well, that’s where all the Grimm fairy tales come from, all the horrid stories about ghouls and witches and young girls…” She trailed off. “I’m just being silly, aren’t I?”

   “Probably not,” said Malfoy casually. “There was some Muggle writer who did some stories a few hundred years ago, that him?”

   “Them,” corrected Hermione. “And yes, I guess so. So it’s all real?”

   Malfoy clicked his neck as he wove around a particularly unstable patch of loose and slushy stones. “If memory serves,” he said. “They missed out the really bad stuff.”

   “Aren’t they all those Muggle cartoon films?” Parvati asked Hermione. “About princesses and enchantments and talking mice?” She shrugged. “Didn’t seem too bad to me.”

   Hermione gazed in trepidation up at the forest. “The originals were a little darker,” she said as they carried on following Malfoy through the snow. She had her patent leather school shoes on which probably weren’t keeping her feet all that warm, but at least they were better than Parvati’s heeled boots she was currently stumbling along with. Harry was grateful he and the other boys had slightly more suitable trainers to kick away the snow.

   “I told you it would be dangerous,” said Malfoy over his shoulder. His delight at the Portkey’s success seemed to be ebbing away. “The back entrance is up that mountain, through the forest, and yes, there are plenty of unpleasant things lurking in its shadows.”

   “You couldn’t have mentioned that sooner?” muttered Seamus.

   “No,” said Malfoy, with some satisfaction. “I couldn’t.”

   Harry, having spent more than his fair share of time in the Forbidden Forest at school, was not so put out by that part of their impending journey. Until they met with some actual Death Eaters, he was saving up his panic. His mind at the moment was still on the Portkey.

   “Why did we have to go to London?” he asked. “Why not just activate the flower pot at my house?” It was surprising how easy it was to say ‘my house’ after only a few hours.

   “There are only certain Floo pathways that will let you travel here,” said Malfoy. “That was the only one in London, and it’s the least monitored as people always tend to use the ones in Hyde or Milton Keynes.”

   “Milton Keynes?” scoffed Parvati. “Why would anyone ever go there?”

   Malfoy almost looked a little sheepish. “The departure point is in an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet,” he told them. “They have karaoke nights.”

   “So,” said Seamus as they got closer to the village. They were almost off the rough ground now and Harry could see a road up ahead. “To summarise, we went to London to active the special flower pot that has taken us to a forest that is home to all manner of creatures, hungry for human flesh-”

   “Seam-us,” whined Parvati.

   “And _if_ we get through all that, then we, what? Sneak in through You-Know-Who’s kitchen? Hope there’s a sign up saying ‘Sarah Potter this way’ and “Dark Lord that way’?”

   Malfoy shook his head and hopped down the couple of feet from the ridge of the rough ground to the tarmac. “I told you not to come, I pretty much begged. You don’t get to moan now.”

   “Watch me,” groused Seamus, jumping down beside him as Parvati scrambled down awkwardly in her heeled boots.

   “Thanks,” said Hermione as Harry offered his hand to help. Malfoy watched as he assisted her onto the road, then began walking towards the little village ahead.

   “We really couldn’t have got any closer?” bemoaned Parvati, as she shivered and stomped along the road.

   “Yes, we could have,” said Malfoy flatly. “I just enjoy your company so much I thought I’d take us the scenic route.”

   “Stop it,” said Harry impatiently. “Malfoy explained this was the back entrance, so I’m not surprised if it’s a bit of a mission. We have to focus on the task at hand; for a start, what kind of creatures are in this forest, is it like the one on the school grounds?”

   Malfoy glanced over his shoulder at him and pulled at the strap of his satchel. “Bigger,” he said. “Granger is right, all those stories are based on some sort of truth. There were a lot of dark witches that lived in there, it was sort of like a clan, and it attracted packs of beasts and other trouble makers. The whole place is just overflowing with dark magic, I guess that’s why You-Know-Who picked it.”

   “Hiding in plain sight too,” said Hermione. “Like being a vampire living in Transylvania, no one would believe it.”

   “Oh there are just as many vampires here as they are in Romania,” said Malfoy grimly. “Nobody’s got any fresh wounds have they? Paper cuts, nose bleeds?”

   Parvati made a little squeaking noise. “What else is there?” she asked.

   “Um,” said Malfoy, looking into the falling snow as if it had the answers. “Usual I guess, Doxies, Erklings, Lethifolds, Chizpurfles – I heard someone saw a Graphorn once.”

   Hermione looked at Harry in panic. “I’ve never even heard of any of those,” she said, her voice tight.

   “You’ve heard of Trolls though yeah?” asked Malfoy. “Werewolves, Vampires?”

   “Yes,” said Hermione.

   “Does that make them any less scary?”

   Hermione chewed her lower lip. “No,” she admitted.

   Malfoy nodded. “There you go then.”

   Harry didn’t think gloating was going to help anyone, so he sighed and stepped up to Malfoy’s side. “Look,” he said in slightly quieter tones. “They’re here now, scaring them isn’t going to get Sarah back. Perhaps we should see what defensive spells they know?”

   Malfoy shoved his hands into his pockets and clicked his jaw. “Okay,” he said begrudgingly. “But not yet, wait until we get though the town, we don’t want any of the Muggles seeing us.”

   “You’ll be fine,” said Harry back to Hermione, addressing Seamus and Parvati too. “We’ll go over some spells in a bit, make sure you can scare anything off.”

   “Right,” said Seamus, but he didn’t sound all that convinced.

   They were coming up to the town now, and had already passed a sign which said _‘Willkommen in Huzenbach.’_ “So, we go through the town, around it? I’m guessing You-Know-Who hasn’t got a room at the local B&B?”

   “Through is probably quickest,” said Malfoy. “Hopefully no one will bother us.”

   “And then the back door is in the forest?” clarified Seamus.

   Malfoy nodded. “About an hour’s walk, maybe less.”

   Parvati, made another little noise at the back of her throat, but didn’t say anything more. Pine trees were already lining the roadside to their left, and Harry could see the buildings up ahead, waiting to greet them. They were white with wooden rooftops and balconies with carved, criss-crossing beams; Harry didn’t think it looked all that ominous, apart from it was dark, but that didn’t mean anything. He knew from experience that trouble could be behind any one of those doors.

   “Have you been here before?” he asked Malfoy as they passed the first lot of buildings, following the winding path that lead towards the mountain.

   “No,” he replied. “But I memorized the directions, we should be fine.”

   “You’ve been gone for three weeks, right?” asked Hermione, looking around at the touristy shops that lined the street; closed cafés and souvenir places filled with magnets, spoons and thimbles.

   Malfoy looked sideways at her. “Yes,” he said. “Like I said, they think I’m…in a huff. No one’s looking for me.” His words were bitter, and Harry wanted to ask more, but he was distracted by the sight of movement amidst the falling snow. He squinted nervously, and saw it was a man walking towards them.

   “Just keep moving,” said Malfoy tensely, having seen the same thing.

   But Harry could see the man’s head snap up as he spotted their group, and he got a bad feeling in his stomach.

   As the man neared, Harry could see he was wearing a peaked white cap and a jacket with a star-like insignia on the shoulder, and he guessed he was a Muggle policeman. That didn’t make him that much less nervous, but at least it wasn’t Voldemort just yet.

   “Guten Abend,” he called out the them, waving a gloved hand.

   Malfoy tensed as they came to a halt several feet away from the officer. “Let me do the talking,” he said.

   The man also came to a stop a meter or so away from them, and looked the five of them over. “Es ist ein wenig spät dafür, sich draußen herum zu treiben?” he said, and Harry looked cluelessly at Malfoy. But Malfoy’s eyes widened, and he blinked as he appeared to struggle to translate.

   Hermione looked between Malfoy and the police officer. “He said it’s late for us to be out at night,” she whispered, but the officer still heard.

   “Ah,” he said. “English. What are you doing out here in the snow?” His accent was strong but his words weren’t hostile, at least Harry hoped not. He automatically looked to Malfoy again, not sure what they should say.

   “We’re, um,” he said, struggling again.

   “On a school trip,” supplied Hermione. She actually sounded quite convincing. “We, um, went for a walk and got lost.”

   “Yeah,” said Seamus. “We’re pretty cold.” He blew onto his hands, no acting required.

   Malfoy nodded, taking up their charade. “We’re staying at the hotel, our professors are probably worried where we are.” He jutted his chin at a larger building over the road, and Harry was impressed to see it was in fact a hotel, or at least looked like one.

   But the police officer frowned. “This hotel?” he said, and Harry could already tell they were in trouble.

   “Yeah,” said Malfoy with conviction though.

   The officer cocked his eyebrow. “My sister is in charge of this hotel, she has not mentioned of English school children.”

   “Probably because we’re not all English,” said Seamus coolly, hamming up his Irish accent.

   “Ah,” said the officer. “Of course. Well, be that may, perhaps I should escort you? I can say hello to Liesel before I am going home.”

   He smiled at them, but it didn’t meet his eyes. He was testing them, he knew they were up to something, and Harry couldn’t say he blamed him. If the forest behind his town was full of Death Eaters, all kinds of things could have been going on in this sleepy Muggle town.

   However, that didn’t stop the fact he was delaying their finding Voldemort’s lair.

   Harry opened his mouth, thinking he’d at least attempt to convince the officer they were okay, thanks, but Malfoy moved quicker than he could speak.

   _“Imperio!”_ he cried, blasting the officer full on the chest with the Unforgivable Curse.

   “No!” shouted Harry in horror, but the spell was already cast. Malfoy was staring at the man, breathing fast, as he staggered, then stood upright once again, a serene look on his face.

   “You never saw us,” rasped Malfoy. “Everything’s fine. Just head home and lock your door, okay?”

   “Okay,” repeated the officer, happily.

   “And,” said Malfoy, shifting his weight uncomfortably. “Give your sister a ring, make sure she’s okay.”

   “Okay,” said the man with a nod, then plodded off, into the snow and out of sight.

   Seamus had his hands gripping onto his sandy blond hair, his face aghast. “Did you just...” he said, staring after the man. “Jedi _mind_ trick him!”

   “That was the Imperius Curse,” said Harry coldly. “It’s one of the worst spells you can cast.”

   “I didn’t hurt him!” protested Malfoy, pointing after the officer. “He would have arrested us or something, now he can nod off whilst we go save his stupid village from all the nasty Death Eaters!”

   There was a part of Harry that understood that made sense, but there was still an unpleasant taste in his mouth. “Let’s just keep moving,” he said.

 

***

 

   The wind seemed to get worse as they picked their way along the cobble stone streets in silence, and it was only when they had worked their way up the snaking path to the base of the mountain that Hermione spoke to Harry.

   “What did Draco do?” she whispered. They were far enough back from Malfoy and the wind was howling enough Harry trusted he couldn’t hear them, but he still eyed him for a moment before replying.

   “An Unforgivable Curse,” he said. “There are three. One kills, one hurts, and this one...this one places you completely at the mercy of the caster’s wishes.”

   Hermione considered this. “Like, hypnotism?” she suggested.

   Harry guessed that was close enough. “That man will literally go home, lock his door, phone his sister, then go to sleep knowing everything is just fine.” There was a hardness to his tone, he could hear it. He knew Malfoy hadn’t hurt the man, but Harry had been subjected to the Imperius Curse before, and there was no way really to describe the helplessness of it all.

   “That doesn’t sound so bad?” said Hermione tentatively.

   “He would have gone and laid on the railway track or set himself on fire if Malfoy had told him to,” said Harry. “Just as happily.”

   “Oh,” said Hermione, and wrapped her coat collar tighter around her neck.

   It wasn’t long before they reached the tree line, and Malfoy stopped and stood by the shadowy foliage, staring at the ground and pulling at his bag until the others arrived to stand beside him. His hair was almost completely blond again, only a few flecks of black were still visible in the moonlight.

   Harry stared into the forest that reached all the way up to the snowy peak of the mountain, but he could only make out a few trees deep before it all just became pitch black. He got out his wand, ready to light it, and tried to quash the uneasiness rising in his guts. He’d been in a forest like this before, he’d even faced Voldemort inside it – although he didn’t know it at the time – and he’d still come out alive.

   But he glanced at Hermione’s pale face and became nervous all over again for her and the rest of them alike.

   “Don’t light that,” said Malfoy stiffly, glancing at Harry’s wand.

   Parvati screwed up her hands and inhaled loudly. “So you’re telling us we have to go in there in the dark?”

   “No,” said Malfoy, still not meeting anyone’s eyes. “But a regular _Lumos_ spell can be seen by anyone.” He checked that no one from the village had followed them, then cast his own magic. _“Apricum,”_ he said, and the tip of his wand lit up just like the spell Harry was going to do.

   But then it began siphoning off like flowing molten gold, blossoming up and forming a small sphere of strong yellowy light, almost as if he had created a miniature sun, about the size of a Quaffle.

   “Oh, yeah,” said Seamus dubiously. “That’s way less noticeable than a small beam off a wand.”

   He was right. The light it was giving off probably lit up around twenty feet around them, it was mesmerizing to look at, and as it rose higher into the air the radius it lit up increased even further.

   Malfoy huffed, his face thunderous. “You are so ungrateful,” he spat, then pushed into the branches, heading for what looked like a narrow but trodden path a little up ahead.

   “Wait,” said Harry, looking nervously back at the village then up into the dark forest. “Seamus is right, someone will definitely see that, it’s like a bloody lighthouse-”

   He suddenly clamped his mouth shut though, because the little ball of sunshine had vanished, plunging them into pitch blackness. His eyes couldn’t see a thing after being exposed to real light for the first time since they’d arrived on the hilltop, and he panicked and tried to blink them rapidly to try and readjust them. “Malfoy!” he hissed as the other three gasped and swore. “What happened, where did you go?”

   The sound of branches being moved and snapped not far away proceeded Malfoy’s irritated voice. “You have to keep up,” he snapped. “And I told you to stop calling me Malfoy. My name is Draco.”

   Harry could just about make out his movement as he blinked his eyes again, and pushed into the foliage, heading for the path he’d assumed Malfoy had been intending for.

   He took a few hurried steps, Hermione behind him, then Parvati and Seamus bringing up the lead, and could sort of see that Malfoy had stopped on the path and was waiting for them. “Malfoy, what-” he began, but then the mini-sun reappeared just as abruptly as it had arrived, like someone had just flipped on a light switch, and he jolted to a halt once again.

   “Harry!” said Hermione, bashing into him and stumbling back into Parvati. “Why’d you stop?”

   “The light’s back?” he replied in confusion.

   “No it’s not,” argued Parvati.

   Harry looked back at them, then over at Malfoy, who was glaring at him with his arms crossed. “Only people within about a ten foot radius can see the light,” he told them. “Which I might have explained if you stopped treating me like the enemy for just one minute.”

   “Oh get down of the cross,” said Seamus scornfully, stomping through the snow-dampened branches and dead leaves into the light beside Harry. “Someone needs the wood.”

   Harry reached for Hermione and took her hand. “This way,” he said, ignoring Malfoy’s pity party. He was still angry at him for the Imperius Curse.

   “Parvati?” said Hermione, and offered her other hand for her to take. Harry, with his advantage of the sunshine, could see Parvati’s surprise, and watched her tentatively place her hand in Hermione’s. They began walking, and Harry saw on each of their faces as they came into range of the light.

   “Oh I see,” said Hermione, turning and looking out to where the light gradually dissipated. It was like having their own lampshade hanging above their heads.

   “Can we get moving now?” asked Malfoy impatiently.

   Harry clicked his jaw. He’d been feeling generous towards Malfoy; true he didn’t seem to be quite as obnoxious as the version he’d known for the past few years, but he was still unfairly rude and obviously had questionable morals.

   So Harry just walked up to him without saying anything, and waited until the others joined before he raised his eyebrows, indicating for Malfoy to lead the way. Malfoy, equally, didn’t say anything, just turned and started down the path, taking them away from the village and deeper into the Black Forest.

   He led them along for a while, none of them saying much. Gradually, the path widened meaning they no longer had to walk in single file, however the trees still arched over them determinedly. It was both comforting and a little oppressive, though Harry was appreciating the lack of snow and wind.

   After a while they approached a glade, and Harry began to think their ball of sunshine wasn’t the only source of light. Splashes of green, pink, blue and orange were darting up ahead, and Harry raised his wand in anticipation.

   “What is it?” asked Hermione, holding up Sarah’s borrowed wand, and Harry could see her breathing was shuddery from the condensation on her irregular gasps.

   He shook his head. “I’m not sure,” he told her. “Just remember that shield charm I taught you, okay?”

   She nodded, and Harry could feel Seamus and Parvati closing in behind them. But Malfoy was still in front, and he crept up to the glade cautiously but not slowing all that much. “I think it’s okay,” he said over his shoulder, looking at Harry with a nod, then turned and ventured into the open space.

   The trees reached as far as they could into the circular enclosure, but for whatever reason none were growing there, meaning a healthy dusting of snow had fallen onto the reasonably flat ground.

   There were a flurry of colours dancing off the white, sparkly ground, and as Harry got closer he could see what was causing the spectacle. It was a swarm of tiny fairies, human looking but about the size of his hand span and flying by the means of gossamer wings the lengths of their bodies attached to their shoulder blades. Each of them were a distinctive different colour of the rainbow, all through their skin, their hair, their wings, and they seemed to be emitting some sort of natural glow.

   “Put your wands down,” said Malfoy, pocketing his own and holding up his hands as the fluttering little creatures began to turn their black, beetle like eyes towards the group. “They won’t bother with us if we leave them alone.”

   Harry did what he was told, and made sure the others did the same. Malfoy seemed assured in his conviction, and Harry couldn’t say he knew much useful information after his Care of Magical Creatures lessons with Hagrid, despite his friend’s enthusiasm for the subject.

   The fairies zipped and darted in their gaggle as Harry followed Malfoy around the edge of the glade, careful not to step in the snow and leave unwanted tracks. The ball of sunshine hovered some way above Malfoy’s head, like a helium balloon attached by a sting, but as it made its way over the glade the fairies were drawn to it, and it began to bob up and down as they flitted around it, inviting it to join in their dance.  

   Eventually, the group crept their way around the open space and back into the shelter of the forest, leaving the dazzling creatures to their business. “Everyone okay?” asked Harry.

   “Fine,” said Seamus.

   “They were hardly that scary,” said Parvati, and Malfoy scoffed.

   They were back on another winding path, and Harry thought he could hear water running nearby. “That was good thinking with the wands,” he said to Malfoy. Whilst they’d been making their way through the forest he’d had time to remind himself not to let his personal relationship get in the way of finding Sarah. He would need all his energy for whatever fights were yet to come, and he genuinely was thankful that Malfoy had known not to threaten the fairies. They may have been small, but there were probably over a hundred of them at least in that swarm, and who knew what might have happened if they’d been provoked.

   Parvati, however, seemed to want to make a point. “I knew that,” she said. “I wrote an essay on fairies last year.”

   “Ten points for Gryffindor,” muttered Malfoy, dropping down a short slope that took them to a riverside path, proving Harry’s theory that he thought he’d heard running water.

   Parvati was quick to follow him. “Just because you know the way, doesn’t mean you’re in charge,” she goaded as Seamus dropped beside her. Harry and Hermione exchange a look, then followed themselves.

   “Parvati,” said Harry gently. “Just leave him alone, alright.”

   She shot him a look. “What’s wrong with you?” she demanded. “Why are you defending him?”

   “He’s taking us to my sister,” said Harry coldly. “My kidnapped sister.”

   “So he says,” interjected Seamus. “You don’t really trust him do you Harry?”

   Harry was getting bored of this. “We don’t have a choice,” he said. “Look, I know that was pretty awful with the Unforgivable Curse, but he was right, he did actually do it for the man’s good as well as our own.”

   “Exactly,” said Malfoy. “Thank you.”

“Let me handle this,” snapped Harry as they trekked along the riverside pathway. “We just have to get on with it, and bickering isn’t going to help us.”

   Parvati grabbed his arm and looked at him in horror. “This isn’t bickering!” she cried indignantly.

   “Good idea,” said Malfoy. “Talk louder. The ball of sunshine also makes people deaf.”

   “You,” she barked viciously, jabbing a finger at him. “You are not one of us, you are here because we unfortunately _need_ you. Make one wrong move-”

   “And you’ll _what?”_ demanded Malfoy, swinging round and bearing down on her. But Harry jumped between them.

   “Stop it!” he shouted. “Now!”

   Seamus shook his head. “Parvati’s right, Harry,” he said. “He’s never answered for anything he did. He’s not on our side, he admitted to spying on Hermione here for heaven’s sake!”

   “That isn’t even remotely what I said,” growled Malfoy, then turned to Hermione herself, an earnest look on his face. “We were forced to keep up to date on Muggle-borns, You-Know-Who had a spy in the Ministry that fed us the names, I didn’t have a choice.” His words were hurried, anxious, and he moved a little closer to Hermione as she eyed him wearily. “The only reason your name stuck out was because people would talk about how gifted you were, some people even thought Dumbledore might have made an exception, let you into the school.”

   Hermione bit her lip and considered him. “Was I in danger?” she asked.

   Malfoy shook his head defensively and made a slight shift backwards. “I never heard anything like that,” he said evasively.

Hermione’s eyes sparked with anger. “But surely that would be the point of an exercise like that?” she said accusingly. “I mean, what would be the point on keeping tabs on us if you didn’t mean to kill us? Recruitment?”

   Malfoy looked surprised. “I guess,” he said. “But I’m sure they would have tried recruiting you, you’re too talented.”

   Harry thought he might have meant that as a compliment, but Hermione looked horrified. “And I would have said _no!”_ she cried. “And then you guys would have killed me! Probably my parents too!”

   Malfoy looked furious. “Not me, I wouldn’t have known anything about any attacks, I’m trying to stop them as much as you all are!”

   “Oh you liar,” growled Seamus. “Three weeks doesn’t mean you’re on the Order of the Phoenix. You’ve just jumped ship because something probably didn’t go your way, you spoilt little git. You don’t fool us!” He stepped up and touched Malfoy’s chest with a single finger. “You knew well enough what was going down at the school three years ago.”

   The school? Harry tried to remember what Sarah had told him, about the attack in what would have been his second year.

   Malfoy slapped his finger away and started walking again. “You don’t know anything,” he seethed.

   But Seamus grabbed his coat and spun him round again, and the two of them stumbled dangerously close to the flowing water. “We were there!” he shouted, and Harry glanced around, trying to see if they were attracting any attention with their loud voices. “Me,” Seamus carried on. “Harry, Parvati, we all had to hide!”

   Malfoy shoved him away. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he spat.

   “You let them in!” yelled Parvati. “What else is there to know! You let him in, and he let that snake _out!”_

   The Basilisk? Was that what she meant? The school was closed because the Basilisk was released?

     “How many died?” challenged Seamus, his face murderous. “And what for, what was the point?”

   “I didn’t know people would die!” hissed Malfoy, shoving Seamus. “Don’t you dare – don’t you dare try and think you know me.”

   “You think if people stop calling you Malfoy,” said Seamus, shoving back. “They’ll forget?”

   “We’ll never forget!” screeched Parvati, going in for a shove of her own.

   But Malfoy’s foot got caught in a root protruding from the mud, and his eyes snapped open as he lost his balance. He gasped and flailed out, grabbing the first thing his hand could find.

   Parvati’s arm.

   “NO!” shouted Seamus, but the two of them were jerked back, flying into the river that was rushing alongside their pathway.

   They hit the water with a crash and disappeared into the depths, Hermione screamed as Seamus looked as if he was going to dive in right after them.

   But Harry was already grabbing for his wand. _“Mobilicorpus!”_ heroared, aiming for the spot where Malfoy and Parvati had been swallowed by the current. In an instant, Parvati shot out of the depths, snatching a lungful of air and flailing her limbs in shock. But Harry wasted no time. He levitated her over the river and dropped her back on the bank, where Seamus and Hermione ran to her side as she coughed and spluttered. Harry turned straight back to the water, scanning the fast moving surface, but Malfoy was nowhere to be seen.

   _“Mobilicorpus!”_ he triedagain, but no one emerged. “No, no,” he cried to himself, edging further up stream.

   But then he did see something; the ball of sunshine. It had stopped another ten to fifteen feet away, and was closer to the water. Like it was waiting.

   Harry didn’t stop to think, he couldn’t. If Malfoy died so did Sarah’s location, so he tore at his clothes, yanking off his coat and the rucksack, throwing them to the ground, and seizing the nearest tree root so he could lower himself down the edge.

   “Harry!” shouted Seamus. “What are you doing!”

   He just pointed with his wand at the miniature sun, then dropped his body into the water. Freezing didn’t even describe it, the cold ripped straight through to his bones, making him almost choke. “Malfoy!” he spluttered, before lighting his wand with a _Lumos_ spell, inhaling, and dropping his head under the depths.

   He had to keep hold of the root with one hand, and point his wand like a torch with the other, so it was left to his shoulder to try and make sure his glasses weren’t pulled right off his face by the current. And he was lucky they weren’t because even through the icy waters, he could just about make out the blurry form of Malfoy, wrestling on the riverbed with his satchel.

   The strap had become entangled with the heavy roots of another tree, and Malfoy couldn’t get himself out. So he was yanking furiously at the strap, trying to unknot it. But he’d been under the water for almost a minute now, and Harry could see he was struggling.

   Harry hauled himself up again, filling his lungs and planning on trying to maybe angle his way over to help Malfoy. But he heard his name being screamed as soon as he broke the surface.

   “HARRY!” bellowed Parvati, pointing hysterically downstream. He snapped his head, and there in the distance was a bluish form, just visible in the artificial sunlight. It looked like a horse, and it was slowly but surely swimming towards him.

   “Kelpie!” yelled Seamus, his fists in balls, and Harry’s insides plummeted. Kelpies were famed for dragging people underwater to their doom. They even ate you for dinner if some stories were to be believed. Harry didn’t intend on sticking around to find out though.

   He took as deep a breath as he could and shoved himself back into the river, kicking off the side and trying to aim himself for Malfoy several feet away. He was scrambling desperately, clearly panicking as his oxygen was running out. Magic was useless underwater, as Harry has found out during the Tri-Wizard Tournament, so he was just hoping he would have better luck untangling Malfoy’s bag than he had.

   Malfoy saw him coming and his panic changed nature as he jerked out his hand and grabbed Harry, pulling him into where the satchel was holding him captive. Harry couldn’t explain to him about the Kelpie, but he would drown before the beast got to them anyway, so he decided to deal with one problem at a time.

   He wrapped his numb hands around the strap and began tugging, trying to snap the roots and give Malfoy any movement he could. But nothing would budge, and with only blurry vision to guide him, Harry couldn’t work out what was keeping Malfoy tied down like it was. He lifted his legs up and jammed his trainers into any crevices he could, shoving with all the power he had. With a sudden lurch, one of the bigger tendrils gave way, and Malfoy was abruptly freed, slamming him into Harry so they both tumbled into the current away from the tree roots.

   They were tangled together, rolling over and spinning around as Harry tried to work out which way was up. He scuffed the riverbed, giving him an indication of which way was down at least, and he tried to push off it, pulling Malfoy with him as they sped along the river towards the Kelpie.

   His lungs were burning, he’d had to screw his eyes shut too against the water so he was blind making him extra helpless. As soon as his feet left the riverbed he lost his sense of direction again, and was just flailing, hoping he was maybe going the right way...

   His hand left the water, found the cold wind that could guide them, and Harry kicked his legs with everything he had, swiping his other hand still holding his wand hoping to hit Malfoy and show him the way.

   He must have got lucky, as the boys hit air simultaneously, filling their lungs with appropriate desperation. Harry was not the best swimmer, so he bobbed under again, thrashing his arms as the current washed him and Malfoy further away from the screaming trio on the bank.

   He had not forgotten about the Kelpie though, and spun around looking for the creature. It only took a second for him to get his bearings, but when he did he realised the water horse was sickeningly close. _“Stupefy!”_ he roared without hesitation, not hitting the beast, but exploding the water close enough to it that it neighed angrily, then dove down out of sight, flicking its tail disgustedly. Harry tried to swivel around looking for it, but it was nowhere to be seen. Had it left?

   He didn’t trust their chances.

   The river was still churning around whether or not the Kelpie was still hunting them or not. Harry tried to move his arms and legs, to push against the pulsating waters, but he had no idea what he was doing. He wasn’t even sure where Malfoy was anymore, but just at that moment he found a hand grabbing a hold of his jumper.

   “Come on!” cried the other boy, and Harry felt himself being tugged. He thrashed with his legs, attempting to be useful, snapping his head back and forth trying to see where they were going.

   They were still moving down the river fast, but the bank was getting closer and closer, inch by inch, until eventually it was within arm’s reach, and the two of them launched for the mud, grabbing at the tree roots to pull themselves out of the water’s grip.

   A neighing grabbed his attention, whipping his head around in fear. The Kelpie reared up again in the middle of the river, but Harry was done with it, he just didn’t have the energy. “Sod off!” he shouted, splashing his legs as he and Malfoy scrambled out of the river and away from its grasp. The beast was clearly miffed, and came a few feet closer, but Harry knew it couldn’t harm them now, and his triumph spurred him onwards.

   They gasped and panted as they hauled their dripping wet bodies upwards, crawling through the sodden dirt and rolling onto relatively dry ground, leaving the Kelpie to vanish from sight once and for all. Malfoy kept coughing the water from his lungs, and Harry just lay there, shivering and shuddering the air in and out of his own lungs. He could hear the voices of Hermione, Parvati and Seamus, but they were still far away, and he thought about how far the river must have taken them.

   “Parvati?” said Malfoy as soon as he could breath properly.

   Harry patted his arm. It felt strange to touch Malfoy. “Safe,” he said.

   Malfoy exhaled and put his hand over his eyes. The river water had washed away the blood from where he’d punched Harry’s bathroom wall, but the scrapes on his knuckles still remained. Harry was amazed he had still managed to keep the satchel around his body, and it was currently leaking water in several little streams along the ground. The contents were probably ruined, but at least it hadn’t taken his life.

   “I’m so sorry,” he said from under his hand.

   “It was just an accident,” said Harry, but Malfoy shook his head.

   “Not that,” he said, then took his hand away. “Well, yeah, that too. But.” He was staring at the snowy sky again, shivering and chattering his teeth just like Harry. “I mean the school. You have to believe me Potter, I had no choice, and I didn’t know what would happen. I had nothing to do with that Basilisk getting out.”

   “Course not,” said Harry, still breathing deeply and looking at the dark sky himself. But he saw Malfoy’s head turn and look at him. Harry looked back. “Well, I mean, you can’t speak Parseltongue, can you?”

   Malfoy stared at him a moment. “What’s that?” he asked, watching Harry carefully, as if what he was saying was some sort of trick.

   “Snake language,” said Harry. It was logical to him, of course Malfoy couldn’t have got down to the Chamber of Secrets, unless he had abilities in this world that he didn’t back in Harry’s. “But you let the Death Eaters in?”

   Malfoy turned away again, then sat up. Harry was unbearably cold, so did the same, pulling his wand out of the mud that he’d miraculously managed to keep hold of. _“Tergeo,”_ he said to both of them, siphoning off the water on them and hurling it back into the river.

   “I didn’t have a choice,” said Malfoy again. He had his arms wrapped around his knees, and was staring across to the other side of the flowing water, lost in himself. “But now I do.” He ground his teeth for a minute, and Harry could hear the others getting closer. “So believe me when I tell you that I am here to help. That I will do anything to make him pay.”

   Harry watched him, and eventually Malfoy moved his eyes so they were once again locked. “Okay Draco,” said Harry, as the other three tumbled down on top of him, checking he was alright.

 

***

 

   Harry felt Malfoy’s words playing on his mind. Hermione, Parvati and Seamus had been so frantic, checking he was alright, that he hadn’t swallowed too much of the river or been nipped by the Kelpie, so he sat there and let them fuss. But all the while he was mulling over what Malfoy had said, what Seamus and Parvati had accused him of.

   The fact was, so Harry could garner from the things he’d leant today, that three years ago Hogwarts was attacked by Death Eaters, some students had died, and the school had closed its doors tightly ever since. But he didn’t know why they had attacked.

   And now according to Seamus and Parvati, Malfoy had ‘let them in’, but Harry couldn’t see how. Hogwarts was one of the safest places in the country as far as he knew. But Malfoy himself wasn’t denying that, he was just claiming he didn’t know what was going to happen, and that he didn’t have a choice. Well, what did he think would happen though, that Dumbledore and Voldemort would sit down and have a nice cup of tea? It wasn’t that much of a leap to assume that if Death Eaters got into Hogwarts, bad stuff was going to occur.

   Hermione had thought to pick up Harry’s coat from where he’d thrown it, and he took it gratefully to slip back on, giving him a little comfort from the harsh elements. She also had his rucksack, but he didn’t put that back on.

   “Let’s get away from this river,” he suggested. “Maybe catch our breath, have some food then carry on?” He shook the backpack, keep to get rid of some of Lily’s sandwiches.

   “Are you sure that’s wise?” asked Hermione, looking around anxiously.

   Seamus had perked up at the mention of food. “Gets my vote,” he said, offering a hand to help Harry stand.

   Harry turned and did the same for Malfoy, who looked surprised, but accepted the offer after only a moment’s pause. “Just five minutes” he said. “No fighting, we’ll just eat, rest our legs then carry on.” He nodded at Hermione. “We’ll be no good if we’re exhausted.”

   Hermione looked at Parvati and Seamus, then back at Harry. “Good point,” she said.

   Malfoy pointed along the track. “We’re going up in a minute anyway,” he said, and began walking once again, glancing at the river wearily.

   Harry followed, the other three behind him, and tried to think what circumstances might leave him without a choice to let the enemy into his home. But then Malfoy was different, he probably didn’t consider Hogwarts his home, and his father was a renowned Death Eater. It might not have been so morally compromising as Harry might imagine, but there was still something bothering him about the whole thing.

   He still felt he had no choice but to trust that Malfoy was taking them the right way, but the more he learned about his alternate past, the better prepared he felt, an at least that was something.

   They traipsed up a slope of bare bushes that snagged at their clothes, and found themselves on a wider pathway that Harry thought was as good a place as any to stop. “Everyone just sit a moment,” he said, indicating the open spot of ground, and began walking in a circle around them, putting up some basic protection spells. They weren’t going to stop any intruders for long, but they would at least light up to warn them and make anything unwanted bounce back a few times.

   No one seemed to want to sit, they were all looking at each other wearily, except for Seamus, who was watching what Harry was doing. “Sirius sure taught you a lot, huh?” he said, frowning. Harry guessed his magic was far more advanced than his doppelganger, but he’d rather stay alive than worry about blowing his cover just at that moment.

   “I mean it,” he said to them once he was done. “We’ll only have a few minutes here, so take a spot and enjoy it while it lasts.” He dropped his rucksack and threw himself on the hard but dry ground, thanking the thick canopy again for its protection from most of the falling snow. He rummaged around, pulling out the wrapped sandwiches, juice, fruit and chocolate his mum had given them, and he privately thanked her for her enthusiasm as there was plenty to go round between the five of them.

   Seamus scooped up several items and retreated to the other side of the path a dozen feet away. Parvati looked at him, then Harry, picked up a banana and then scuttled over to join Seamus. Harry was worried they were changing their minds about coming because of his out-of-character behaviour, but he really had begged them not to come, so he tried not to feel too responsible.

   He picked up a beef and mustard sandwich and held it up to Malfoy. “Hungry?” he asked as Hermione sat beside him and unwrapped one of her own. Malfoy considered the sandwich.

   “That’s your food,” he said evenly.

   “The more we eat,” said Harry, giving it a little shake. “The less I have to carry.”

   Malfoy looked at it another moment, then took it carefully from Harry’s hand. “Thanks,” he said stiffly, and Harry marvelled that he’d lived to see Draco Malfoy thank him for anything.

   Seamus and Parvati were huddling together, muttering, but Harry couldn’t hear them so he left them to it. Malfoy kept himself busy using Harry’s _Tergeo_ spell to try and dry off his bag, and Hermione flicked through one of Harry’s spell books, twitching Sarah’s wand around every now and again. The ball of sunshine wandered between the three of them, hanging over their heads for a little while at a time and providing a modicum of warmth. Parvati shot it the odd scornful look, presumably because she and Seamus had been left in the shadows.

   They needed to get moving, but everything was a little too tranquil, and when Harry felt his eyes flickering he probably didn’t fight it as much as he should have.

Just one more minute, he thought to himself.

   A crunching noise, like feet treading on dry leaves whispered at Harry’s ear, and his guts flinched in anticipation, but he could feel Hermione beside him and she didn’t react. So the sensation fluttered away from Harry without any real purchase, and his breathing became deeper as his shoulders slumped against the tree behind his back.

   When Ron Weasley sat down next to him, there was a nice, happy part of him that just accepted that was what was happening.

   Ron held his hands up to the few snowflakes trickling through the canopy, catching them as they fell. “What the hell is this?” he asked.

   “Ron?” said Harry slowly. “Are you here, what’s going on?”

   Ron rolled the melting snow under his fingers. “How the bloody Hell should I know?” he said.

   Harry looked around. “To be honest,” he said. “I’ve not known what’s been going on for hours.”

   Ron let the snow dip from his fingers, rubbing it away and looking around at the motley crew propped against the trees. “Mate,” he said almost accusingly. “What is this, where are we?”

   Harry blinked. He still wasn’t sure if there was something wrong with Ron being there, but it was such a relief to see him he didn’t want to think about it too much. “In a forest,” replied Harry.

   Ron rolled his eyes. “I can see that,” he said. “With Malfoy?” he added, jerking his thumb as Malfoy dried off a series of photos that had somehow survived the river, not paying Ron’s arrival any attention.

   “Long story,” Harry said.

   Ron watched as Hermione – who was as oblivious to him as Malfoy it seemed – swished Sarah’s wand again, trying out another spell. “How come ‘Mione’s here?” he asked, a little hurt.

   “I tried to stop her,” said Harry honestly. “She insisted.”

   Ron rubbed his eyes. “Harry,” he said. “Where have you been? We’ve been really worried?”

   Harry shrugged, lost for words. “It’s not like I had a choice,” he said eventually.

   There was a crashing noise behind them; someone bashing their way through the foliage. Harry’s heart skipped a beat as he and Ron jerked their heads around to look.

   A man was forcing his way through the trees of the Black Forest, slapping down the branches like they were mosquitoes flying up to prey on his flesh. Except this guy really didn’t have much flesh on display to offer. Harry could see he was clothed, head to toe, as he slammed and beat his way up the slope through the groping tree arms. Floppy boots, tight jeans, fitted t-shirt, tail coat with – from what Harry could glimpse – a flashy colourful lining, and hair that could probably sway a traffic camera. The man, with high cheekbones and eyelashes long enough to grace them, harrumphed his way up to Harry and Ron, who looked up at him with open mouths. Harry should have probably been scared, or prepared to fight, but something about him felt like this man wasn’t a threat, though he couldn’t seem to say why.

   “Well bugger it,” swore the man, with perfect received pronunciation. “That didn’t work at all, did it?”

   He seemed to be talking to himself, as he stamped his foot and shook his highlighted flicks. “Um,” said Harry, feeling like he couldn’t help but recognise the man. But how could he? “Sorry?”

   “No, no,” said the stranger with irritated ease. “Of course it’s not your fault.” Then he jerked his head down and looked at Harry in surprise. “You can see me?” he asked after a moment’s pause.

   Harry looked at Ron. “Yeah,” he said. “Who are you?”

   The man waved a hand dismissively. “A figment of your imagination,” he said. “A spectacular failure who is no doubt going to lose his job.” He swished back his tail coat and fetched out a worn looking pocket watch from his breast. “Damn,” he said, after examining it.

   “What?” asked Ron. “What’s going on?”

   “Nothing,” said the slender man. “And that’s the whole bloody problem. I don’t suppose you’d consider hanging around here for the next twelve hours?”

   Harry exchanged a glace with Ron.

   “Mate,” said his red-headed friend. “I don’t even know where ‘here’ is.”

   The man shrugged elaborately. _“Here,”_ he said with emphasis. “Isn’t really anywhere.”

   Ron raised an eyebrow. “Brilliant.”

   The man exhaled and looked around for a moment in each direction. “Well I guess this didn’t work. Back to the drawing board.” He shook his head at Ron like he was lost for words. “Mind you get yourself home now. We’ve had enough...” he flicked his fingers at Harry. “Problems for one universe today.”

   He ran his hand through his highlights, muttering disgruntled under his breath. He spun on his heels, stomping back the way he came. “Don’t worry Harry,” he called over his shoulder with a wave. “I’ll fix this, don’t you worry.”

   Harry leant over, watching as he dropped down to the riverside path and out of sight. “Fix what?” he shouted after him, but there was no response.

   “Harry?”

   He spun around and found Hermione shaking his shoulder, and he jerked out of his sleep, losing the dream to the back of his mind.

   “What?” he mumbled, disoriented.

   “Wake up,” she whispered. “We have to go.”

   Her tone was frightened, and Harry snapped out of his tiredness immediately, jumping to his feet and snatching out his wand.

   “What’s going on?” he asked. The lights from his spell hadn’t activated, but everyone was still scrambling to their feet, grabbing up their belongings and any rubbish from the sandwiches.

   “We have to go,” said Malfoy, throwing his now dry bag back over his shoulder. “We have to go now.”

   “Why?” asked Harry.

   Malfoy grimaced. “Something’s coming.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so a lot happened there. What do you think of Hermione, Seamus and Parvati coming along? Seamus and Parvati have got a serious issue with Draco, that's for sure. And seeing as she just found out she was a witch a couple of hours ago, Hermione's having a seriously intense night! Germany, the river, the revelation Draco let the Death Eaters into the school, Harry's dream with Ron and Alex, what do you make of it all?


	6. Shout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You don’t know what happened to us, you weren’t there!” Parvati Patil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready for some action, some feels, and some...poetry?

Chapter Five -

   Shout

 

Shout

Shout

Let it all out

These are the things I can do without

Come on

I'm talking to you

Come on

 

In violent times

You shouldn't have to sell your soul

In black and white

They really, really ought to know

Those one track minds

That took you for a working boy

Kiss them goodbye

You shouldn't have to jump for joy

You shouldn’t have to shout

 

They gave you life

And in return you gave them hell

As cold as ice

I hope we live to tell the tale

You shouldn’t have to shout

 

And when you've taken down your guard

If I could change your mind

I'd really love to break your heart

I’d really love to shout

 

Tears For Fears

 

   Ron Weasley ran his fingers along the stone wall as he traipsed wearily through the silent corridor of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Hermione had made him grab an hour or so of sleep that afternoon, put apart from that he hadn’t stopped since Harry’s disappearance over twenty four hours ago.

   _Why_ hadn’t he gone after him? Sirius’ arrest had hit him hard, he hadn’t sounded at all like himself when he’d stormed from the Gryffindor common room, and now he’d vanished into thin air. That couldn’t possibly mean anything good.

   Dumbledore was still desperately trying to help Sirius, and Ron hadn’t seen him since their meeting the night before, but his dad had sent him an owl to tell him they were working with several others at the Ministry to try and make Cornelius Fudge see some sense, and had apparently had as much sleep as Ron and Hermione.

   Professor McGonagall was apparently in constant communication with the headmaster though, and along with Ron and Hermione had rallied the other prefects into searching the school grounds for Harry when he hadn’t returned to the Gryffindor tower. The two of them had checked the Marauder’s Map what felt like a million times to no avail, but they and the other prefects were still determinedly combing through every room the school had to offer, even going to far as to search the Forbidden Forest whilst they’d had some daylight.

   Well, most of the other prefects, Ron thought as he climbed yet another set of stairs, his legs heavy as lead. Draco Malfoy had apparently organised an impromptu party in the Slytherin common room, and when McGonagall had questioned him on this, he’d simply argued he’d been conducting a head-count to make sure no other students had vanished.

   But then, what did Ron expect? If something bad had happened to Harry, as much as he didn’t want to think it might, it was almost certainly Lucius Malfoy and the rest of the Death Eaters that were behind it.

   But _how_ could anyone have got onto the Hogwarts grounds, it was so well protected? The only other option would be that Harry had completely left the grounds, maybe snuck off to Hogsmeade? Hermione had insisted they confess to McGonagall about the secret passageway they had to the village, just in case that’s what Harry had done, but so far a search of the town had given nothing either.

   Ron had been heartened by several of the younger students volunteering as well, giving up their own time to help teachers and prefects look inside every nook and cranny, but the longer the search went on, the more worried Ron was getting. It was like a constant knot in his stomach, and he kept finding himself absently turning to ask Harry is advice, only to find him not there.

   His brothers had done their best to cheer him and the rest of the school up, but Fred and George had a different notion of being worried, and it mostly involved ‘not doing it’ as well as a set of Dr Filibuster's Fabulous Wet-Start, No-Heat Fireworks going off in the Great Hall. Ron had been able to appreciate their effort, if not the actual results.

   Hermione had been looking after him though, keeping him together, and he hoped he’d been doing the same for her. The thought of her made him finally admit defeat, and think about heading back to the Gryffindor tower to see if anyone had made any progress, and maybe just to sit down for a little while.

   So he changed directions and began heading home, kindling the smallest hope that someone would be there to greet him with something new. Preferably Harry’s sheepish face, which Ron could give a friendly thump too before they all laughed about what a silly numpty he’d been for scaring them all so badly.

   He met a few sets of prefects on his way, who all shook their heads sadly as he approached them. No one had anything new, no one could make any guesses.

   Apart from that old History Classroom. McGonagall had seemed interested in the state it had been found in, and Ron and Hermione were able to admit they thought that was where Harry had tried to speak to Sirius earlier in the day. But that didn’t mean anything, unless he’d used it to Floo somewhere else in the country? But then why would he trash all the furniture? If he had snuck off to try and do something for Sirius, why leave a clue like that? More importantly, why wouldn’t he have included Ron and Hermione in on what he was doing?

   Ron sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes again. They were sore but it didn’t stop him doing in. None of it made sense, Harry wouldn’t have just left, something bad must have happened. Ron guessed now it was just a case of finding out howbad.

   The fat lady fidgeted guiltily as he approached the Gryffindor tower, smoothing down her skirts and shifting in her seat. “Any sign of him?” she asked. Ron had heard her earlier telling McGonagall how awful she felt for letting Harry leave after curfew, and since had organised several other portraits to aid in the search.

   “Not a trace,” murmured Ron. “Caldron Cakes.”

   She swung on her hinges letting him enter the Gryffindor tower, and he embraced the warmth from the fire burning in the hearth greedily. No one was there disappointedly, not even Hermione. Ron remembered though she had said something about having an idea and heading to the library; Dumbledore had given them permission to look at any books they thought might help, and Hermione always felt better doing research. Ron wouldn’t have been surprised if she found a way to read Harry back.

   The arm chairs by the fire looked incredibly tempting, and as Ron glanced at his watch he figured Hermione couldn’t be out much longer. So he headed over to his favourite, the big red one that was hardly ever free, and sunk down onto the cold floor, resting his back against the damp bark of the impressively large tree.

   Harry looked tired.

   “What the Hell is this?” said Ron confused, holding his hand out to the snow as it fell. How did he get into a forest? Was he supposed to be here?

   “Ron?” said Harry, noticing with a start. “Are you here, what’s going on?”

   Ron rolled the melting snow under his fingers. “How the bloody Hell should I know?” he said. Something was nagging at him, something wasn’t right. But at that moment he was just happy to see Harry, it felt like it had been a long time.

   Harry looked around. “To be honest,” he said. “I’ve not known what’s been going on for hours.”

   They were sat by a pathway in woods that didn’t look familiar. There were a few more people also sat around them, and although they did in fact look familiar, Ron couldn’t exactly say he could explain them all being there. Hermione was nearby, reading a book, which made good sense. But then there was Draco Malfoy, Seamus Finnigan and Parvati Patil, none of which Ron could say he’d even seen hanging around together before. Maybe Seamus and Parvati in a large group, but Malfoy?

   “Mate,” he said, letting the snow melt between his fingers. “What is this, where are we?”

   Harry blinked. “In a forest,” he said, as if that was obvious.

   Ron rolled his eyes. “I can see that,” he said. “With Malfoy?” he added, jerking his thumb at the Slytherin next to them. He was ignoring Ron though, which wasn’t all that unusual, and busying himself magically drying stuff from a wet looking satchel.

   “Long story,” was all that Harry said.

   Hermione was sat on Harry’s other side. She too was concentrating hard, reading a spell book and swishing her wand about. “How come ‘Mione’s here?” he asked, a little hurt.

   “I tried to stop her,” said Harry quickly. “She insisted.”

   Ron rubbed his sore eyes. “Harry,” he said. “Where have you been? We’ve been really worried?”

   Harry shrugged, and held up his hands. “It’s not like I had a choice,” he said eventually.

   A crashing noise made them both turn round with a start, looking into the forest beyond the tree line. As strange as all this was, for whatever reason Ron didn’t feel panicked, like everything was a bit too far away to really care about.

   After a second, an unfamiliar man came into sight, pushing through the branches scratching at his clothes and face. He was of a height in between Harry and himself, slim, with tousled blond hair and a strong jaw. From his mis-matched clothes Ron might have guessed he was a wizard, but despite their oddities it still sort of worked.

   He made his way straight to Harry and Ron, and even with his gut feeling this was no one to be afraid of, Ron still felt a flutter of apprehension.

   “Well bugger it,” said the man crossly in a posh-boy accent. “That didn’t work at all, did it?” He stamped his foot in agitation and shook the snow out of his hair.

   Ron wanted to ask what hadn’t worked, but Harry got their first. “Uh,” he said, sounding a little sleepy. “Sorry?”

   “No, no,” he said waving at them dismissively and looking around at the rest of the group, who were apparently oblivious to the strange man. “Of course it’s not your fault.” But then his head snapped back down and looked at the two boys with more interest. “You can see me?” he asked.

   Harry looked at Ron. “Yeah,” he said. “Who are you?”

   The man waved a hand like he was disappointed in himself. “A figment of your imagination,” he said with a sigh. “A spectacular failure who is no doubt going to lose his job.” He fished into his coat pocket with a flourish and retrieved a little old watch on a chain. “Damn,” he said, after checking the time.

   “What?” Ron finally asked. “What’s going on?”

   “Nothing,” said the stranger. “And that’s the whole bloody problem. I don’t suppose you’d consider hanging around here for the next twelve hours?”

   Harry caught Ron’s eye, and he decided to answer that one

   “Mate,” he said honestly. “I don’t even know where ‘here’ is.”

   The man shrugged his shoulders a few times and waved his hands about. _“Here,”_ he said, shaking his head. “Isn’t really anywhere.”

   Ron raised an eyebrow. “Brilliant.” What did that mean?

   The posh man sighed and looked from side to side, before jumping up and down, perhaps to get the feeling back in his toes. “Well I guess this didn’t work,” he said glumly. “Back to the drawing board.” He shook his head at Ron, not like he’d done something wrong, but Ron felt guilty all the same. “Mind you get yourself home now. We’ve had enough...” He pointed towards Harry. “Problems for one universe today.”

   He ruffled his hair, grumbling, before cavorting away, disappearing once more into the woods. “Don’t worry Harry,” Ron heard him say as Harry leant around the tree to watch him go. “I’ll fix this, don’t you worry.”

   “Fix what?” Harry shouted after him, but he didn’t get an answer.

   As Harry turned back round Ron wanted to ask him what was going on, who the man was, how they’d got into a forest, where he’d been the past day. But he felt someone touch his shoulder and call his name. “Ron?”

   “Harry?” he said, turning round.

   “Ron!” His eyes flew open. Hermione was standing over him, holding an old, large book in one hand and shaking his shoulder with the other. He was sitting in the armchair nearest the fire, his skin hot from the flames. Hermione’s eyes searched his face and he blinked and rubbed his forehead.

   “Are you okay?” she asked.

   “I just had the strangest dream,” he said.

 

***

 

   They were already moving, trying to pack their belongings back together as they rushed through the foliage, heads snapping back and forth, peering frantically through the snow as they attempted to locate the approaching threat.

   “What’s coming?” Harry asked Malfoy who was rummaging through his satchel as they ran.

   “Don’t know,” said Malfoy. “We heard a bang, surprised it didn’t wake you.”

   “And there’s a funny smell,” added Parvati. Harry realised she was right as he naturally breathed in heavily after the sudden bust of exercise. He tasted something faint on the snow that made him think of a closed rubbish bin with something unpleasant lurking inside.

   “Vampires?” he suggested, making Seamus’ eyes pop all the way open. He knew from his Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons that vampires often lived in the wild and that, as well as their diet of blood, gave them a rather pungent aura.

   Malfoy was still rummaging, and Harry wasn’t sure how he wasn’t tripping over. The sunshine was still speeding loyally over his head, but there were plenty of roots and ruts that were challenging their footing even with the help of the ball of light. “Possibly,” said Malfoy, finally pulling out a dark waxy drawstring bag that he hastily yanked open. “You might want some of these.”

   He slowed and plunged his arm into the bag, all the way up to his shoulder even though the bag was only a foot or so deep. Hermione gasped.

   Malfoy seemed to feel about for a bit, then retracted his hand that was wrapped around as many things as his long fingers could cling on to; a wooden stake and slender silver spike, a couple of crucifix necklaces, a string of garlic bulbs and a bottle of holy water gripped precariously between his fingertips.

   Harry rescued the bottle first then took the other items as Malfoy delved back in to fetch pouches labelled ‘salt’, more stakes and silver weapons, as well as a wicked looking knife, bushels of herbs and a string of marbled stones. It reminded Harry of Professor Lupin’s stock cupboard.

   “Everyone take something,” said Malfoy, as he and Harry distributed the lot indiscriminately. “Stakes, crosses and holy water are for vampires, silver for werewolves, salt for spirits and this,” he held up the sheathed knife before sliding it through his belt loop. “Is for anything else.”

   “Werewolves are still people,” protested Harry, thinking of Lupin.

   “Not these ones,” said Malfoy darkly.

   Parvati held up the string of stones. “What are these for?” she asked as they hastily got moving again.

   Malfoy glanced over at them. “Let’s hope you don’t have to find out,” was all he said.

   The path was winding upwards and becoming more narrow. They had been climbing the mountain steadily since the village and the temperature was dropping noticeably. “Shouldn’t we stand and fight?” said Harry, looking up at the rocky surface rising to their left. “We could take higher ground, get an advantage.”

   “No telling if they’re on the ground of not,” said Malfoy as they pounded on. “We’re not too far from the entrance I think, we might just make it, we just need to-”

   He was blasted of his feet by the ground erupting in an explosion. The rest of them shouted and screamed as they jumped aside, flailing arms to keep themselves upright. Malfoy dropped and rolled, scrambling back upright as he jerked back and forth, looking for the source of the attack.

   “Er,” said Seamus, staring in front of his nose. “I don’t think it’s vampires somehow.”

   The snow had frozen to a halt, suspended in front of them like a photograph with what had to be magic. “What could do that?” cried Harry, but Malfoy’s face had already shifted into panic.

   “Run!” he shouted. “Run, run!”

   The group didn’t need any more encouragement. Harry wracked his brains as his trainers slammed into the hard and slippery ground, glancing over his shoulder almost every other step to check the others were keeping up as they flung themselves through the suspended snowflakes. Tree branches were snapping and ripping off over their heads, and flock of crows went screaming past, flying, worryingly, in the opposite direction to the way they were running.

   “What’s doing this?” cried Harry. “What could stop the snow and break the trees?”

   “Not ‘what’,” said Malfoy grimly. “‘Who’.”

   “You mean Death Eaters?” hissed Parvati from behind them in alarm as several pinecones danced along the ground in front of them.

   But Malfoy shook his head. “I don’t think so, not from the smell. And if it was them, we’d probably be dead already.”

   “Then what?” asked Harry.

   Malfoy looked like he was going to answer, when he stopped dead in his tracks, practically causing the rest of them to run into him. There, on the path, was a small child of only about four or five. She was filthy and dressed in rags, her shoes patched together and her hands and head bare against the elements. Her hair was a mane of frizz and twigs, and in her hands she held a mucky bit of cloth protectively.

   “Oh sweetheart,” cried Parvati, the first to react to this strange sight as she pushed between the boys. “Are you alr-”

   “NO!” shouted Malfoy, shoving her down, but not quick enough. The little girl stamped her foot and shrieked, and a flash of light tore through the group, knocking Parvati down and bursting the tree behind her into flames. Parvati had not escaped unscathed though; she screamed, her coat on fire, and tried desperately to struggle out of it.

   “Roll her! Roll her!” shouted Hermione from where she’d landed several feet away, and Malfoy did exactly that, pushing the other girl down into the snow.

   Harry heaved himself back onto his feet as the young girl began wailing at the top of her lungs in frenzied, irate German, tears rolling down her cheeks as another tree burst into a tower of flames.

   “Get off me!” shouted Parvati, despite the fact that Malfoy had successfully stopped her coat from burning.

   “Fine,” he snarled, and turned back to the little girl. _“Stupefy!”_ The girl was thrown off her feet, flying several feet and crumpling into a heap of unconsciousness.

   “What did you do!” squealed Parvati racing over to where the child now lay, her singed coat forgotten. Harry hastily but both the trees out before any of the ones around them could catch fire too, and watched on as Parvati lifted the girl’s head and inspected her small, unconscious body.

   “She’ll be fine,” snapped Malfoy scanning the shadows beyond the light of their tiny sun. “Which is more than you would have been if she’d really hit you.”

   Parvati scowled at him, cradling the girl. “She can’t have done that,” she argued back. “She’s too young, she doesn’t have a wand.”

   Malfoy looked furious. “She’s an _Ungezähmt,”_ he said. “Feral, inbred witches and wizards, they live out here and never use wands, they just build up their natural magic and it is massively dangerous and unpredictable. You’re welcome, by the way, for saving your life.”

   He glowered at her and she left the child to jump to her feet. “I can take care of myself,” she yelled. “I don’t need _you_ Malfoy!”

   “Shh!” hissed Hermione, her eyes like saucers and Sarah’s wand trembling in her hand.

   Harry blinked and listened.

   There were shouts coming from the distance.

   “There’s more,” he breathed.

   “Go!” cried Malfoy, and broke into a sprint again. Harry went to follow him, but made a split second decision to shoot up some red sparks first.

   “What are you thinking!” scalded Seamus as he ran to catch up.

   “She’s still just a child,” said Harry. “I don’t want her to freeze to death, and maybe they’ll be more interested in finding her than us.”

   “Good thinking,” said Malfoy.

   The snow had started falling again and the tree branches had stopped snapping down onto their heads, but the sounds that were following them through the forest suggested to Harry the random magic hadn’t stopped just yet. In fact, he was pretty sure the snow was turning green.

   “They work for the Death Eaters?” he breathed as they pelted along the narrow track, dense trees either side of them, the ball of sunshine still hovering above Malfoy protectively.

   “More like natural guard dogs,” replied Malfoy. “We must be in their territory.”

   “So if we leave it,” said Seamus. “Go far enough, they’ll just leave us alone.”

   Malfoy huffed in a way to suggest that was highly unlikely.

   “How far,” panted Hermione, struggling greatly with running for so long. “Until the entrance?”

   Malfoy shook his head, unsure. “Five, maybe ten minutes.”

   “We just keep running then,” said Seamus. “Hopefully those Ung-whatever will be more interested in the girl, and forget all about us.”

   “If someone knocked your daughter or sister out,” said Malfoy. “Would you just let them get away with it?”

   Seamus grimaced in response.

   A small mound of earth exploded by Harry’s feet as he raced past, and he hopped out of the way. “I think we’ve got company,” he warned as several other small mounds spat outwards, like moles using dynamite.

   “They’re not controlling it,” said Malfoy. “They’re not targeting us necessarily, they’re just angry at us so it’s cropping up in our vicinity. If we keep moving, we might outrun it.”

   Seamus cried out as a rock flew at his head and smashed into a tree that was apparently humming. “It _seems_ pretty targeted!” he yelled.

   A boy who couldn’t have been much younger than them leapt from the trees and landed on Harry’s back, smashing them both to the ground. Within seconds another four or five figures erupted from the foliage, but Harry was too busy wrestling with the boy to see properly. He was screeching in an animalistic way and grabbed Harry’s head to slam it into the forest floor, making Harry gasp and see stars. The boy began punching anything he could reach, Harry’s head, chest, arms, but before Harry could get his wits together to defend himself a boot came flying into the boy’s side, sending him flying.

   “You okay?” said Seamus, offering Harry a hand to get back up. Harry nodded as he took it, seeing the magic blasting through the air from the others. Hermione was just shouting _“Stupefy!”_ over and over again. Her aim wasn’t great, but as Harry watched she hit a woman dressed in a hessian sack and animal furs, throwing her to the ground several feet away.

   The boy that had attacked Harry wasn’t down for long, and was already scrabbling to his feet and running back at them. _“Stupefy!”_ shouted Harry, following Hermione’s example and knocking the boy down for the count. But almost immediately Harry and Seamus were both swept off their feet by someone else and slammed violently into trees several feet away, and Harry cried out as he crashed to the ground with a painful thump. “Seamus!” he called, but the Irish boy was slumped, unmoving, and blood was trickling down from his head.

   _“Seamus!”_ screamed Parvati, running for him. But an scraggly man grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back. Harry jumped back on his feet to run to Seamus, seeing how she pulled out the string of stones Malfoy had given her. She began to beat the man off with viscous swings of her arm, whipping and thrashing them against him with guttural sounds and shrieks. Harry wasn’t sure what the stones were supposed to be used for, but the scraggly man’s howls suggested they were working well enough.

   Harry skidded to a halt by Seamus and inspected his head. He was starting to stir and moaned as Harry turned him to see his face. _“Salvio Hexia,”_ he said, hopefully giving Seamus a bit of protection whilst he came back around. “Come on mate,” said Harry, tapping his face. _“Episkey.”_ The cut on his head vanished, and Seamus blinked his eyes open.

   Harry’s attention was grabbed by Parvati screaming as she finally broke free of the man attacking her. A flock of bluebirds had appeared over the man’s head – Harry guessed from an unwitting _Avis_ charm rather than naturally – and they had begun attacking both Parvati and the scraggly man indiscriminately, causing him to let go. The man looked shocked at what he’d created, but it didn’t stop him from reaching out trying to grab Parvati again. She seemed to have forgotten about her wand and just lashed out with the stones at both him, and his bluebird creations.

   Malfoy had been tackling another grown witch, but at that moment she was subdued and he turned his attention instantly to Parvati and her attackers. The birds had swarmed out and launched for Harry and Seamus, and Harry yelled out as he threw his body over Seamus’ to try and protect him.

   _“Incarcerous!”_ he heard Malfoy cry, followed by _“Confundo!”_

   The birds vanished, but not before they had got a few dozen stabbing beaks and scratching claws onto Harry’s coat and skin. He exhaled in relief and jerked his head up to look out. There was one girl about ten feet away who they had not managed to yet tackle, and she saw in horror the scraggly man where he sat, chained and docile in a confused state on the forest floor.

   The girl looked at Malfoy and screamed in fury, balling her fist and throwing her head back.

   “Get down!” Malfoy cried, grabbing Hermione’s arm and pulling her to the floor with him. After what had happened before, Parvati was quick to do the same, and Harry once again threw his body over Seamus’. A ring of purple magic exploded from around the girl, slamming over their heads into the trees which bent backwards with the force. Wind was rushing so loud it was practically a roar, and all the snow was swept upward, smashing into the trees as they suddenly lurched back the other way, aiming their branches down to where the five teenagers were huddled.

   _“Impedimenta!”_ yelled Harry, hitting the girl square on the chest. She froze, mid scream, and toppled over like a toy soldier, landing on her back. The magic was broken immediately, snapping the trees back up and dropping the snow in a minor avalanche.

   “Plugh!” cried Seamus beside Harry, shaking off the pile that had plonked on his head, finally waking him up.

   “You okay?” Harry asked.

   Seamus blinked and touched his head gingerly. “Never better,” he said, wincing.

   “Is that all of them?” asked Parvati, still holding her stones as she cautiously got to her feet.

   Malfoy looked around before doing the same, offering his hand to assist Hermione as she stood. “I doubt it,” he said.

   The scraggly man that he had hit with the Confundus Charm was the only _Ungezähmt_ still conscious, and Harry watched him smiling at them and wiggling his feet as Harry also helped Seamus to get back up.

   The confusion charm would wear off soon, but Harry didn’t want to take any chances. “How would I tell him to behave himself, in German?” he asked Hermione.

   “Um,” she said, brushing the snow from her coat and holding up Sarah’s wand again apprehensively. “‘Sie gut sein’is like ‘you be good’, if that helps?”

   It was good enough for Harry. He turned back to the man and fixed eyes with him. “Sie gut sein,”he said firmly, hoping his pronunciation was alright. The man nodded though, still smiling.

   “I think we should get out of here whilst we still can,” said Seamus, rubbing his head.

   “I think we might be too late for that,” said Malfoy, pointing down the path where the ball of sunshine was just illuminating. They would have still been in the dark, but with the advantage of the sunshine Harry could see the group of _Ungezähmts_ creeping their way, and his stomach dropped.

“Keep calm,” he said to the others as they raised their wands in fear. The ground was rumbling unnaturally and the air had become so warm the snow was melting at a rapid pace, running in rivets through tiny pathways in the dirt.

   “What’s the worst they could do?” asked Parvati, her eyes anxiously taking in what was left of the snow around them. “We beat them okay.”

   “There are a few craters round here that might answer your question,” said Malfoy as they backed up slowly down the path, edging away from hostile group of witches and wizards.

   The woman in the animal furs sat up suddenly, and Harry realised Hermione’s spell mustn’t have quite worked as well as it should have. She blearily eyed up the five of them, then turned her head towards the approaching _Ungezähmts._

   “Stop,” said Harry urgently. “Don’t make any sudden movements.”

   “Like running away?” asked Seamus sardonically.

   The woman was groggy at least from the spell, and didn’t try to get up or attack them as such, but Harry wasn’t going to take any chances.

   “Just follow my lead,” he told the other four as the first of the _Ungezähmts_ crept into the sunshine’s radius, and stopped in shock. “It’s alright,” said Harry coaxingly as they spun around, suspicious that they could suddenly see like it was daytime. “It’s okay, it won’t hurt you.”

   “You can’t reason with them!” hissed Malfoy, but Harry didn’t look back at him. He just kept his eyes on the woman at the front of the group, she seemed like their leader by the air of authority hanging off of her. But she barred her teeth at their ball of light, and a crackling sound filled the air.

   “No, no,” said Harry hastily. “None of that. Look.” He pointed his wand at the scraggly tied-up man, which caused the _Ungezähmts_ to jerk into reaction, but Harry beat them to it. _“Relashio,”_ he said, and the ropes fell away from the man, who was apparently still feeling the lingering effects of Malfoy’s Confundus Charm, and just grinned happily at his friends.

   The woman at the front of the group frowned and looked between the man and Harry. “See,” he said, knowing they probably didn’t understand his English but hoped his tone was reassuring enough. “We don’t want to fight you, we just want to be on our way.”

   “This is madness,” muttered Malfoy. “We should just blast them and leg it.”

   But Harry wasn’t done, he didn’t want to be looking over his shoulder for the rest of the journey. “We _can_ fight you,” he said, lighting up his wand again to illustrate his power over them. “But we don’t want to, alright?” He aimed at the girl he had hit last, the one that had tried to shish kebab them with the trees. _“Rennervate,”_ he said, and she woke up with a gasp.

   The other _Ungezähmts_ gasped too and rushed to her side as she coughed and spluttered, but the leader woman remained standing, and looked towards the other three of her people that were still lying on the ground. Harry wasn’t sure what Malfoy had done to them.

   “Are they alive?” he whispered to the other boy through the corner of his mouth.

   “Should be,” Malfoy whispered back.

   Harry took a deep breath, then turned the awakening spell onto each of the three in turn, saving the boy that had jumped on his back until last. He watched in great relief as they all sprung back to life, one after the other.

   The woman continued to watch as her fellows went to these _Ungezähmts_ , then turned back to where dozens and dozens of them were crowded in the shadows, out of the ball of sunshine’s reach. “Ulla!” she grunted, and there was movement within the throng.

   Another woman came forward, her face livid and covered in tears. In her arms she cradled the small girl that had attacked Parvati with the fire, the one Harry had sent up the flare over. The new woman gnashed her teeth and snarled something in garbled German, but the leader pointed her finger to the floor. _“_ Setzte sie,” she said, and the other woman knelt down, her angry eyes never leaving Harry as she placed the still unconscious girl onto the muddy ground.

   The leader then pointed at the girl, and Harry understood her meaning. Wake her up, was what she was saying. _“Rennervate,”_ said Harry without pause, and the little girl gasped awake, just like the others had.

   “Okay,” said Seamus as the group rejoiced and the angry woman became joyful and lifted the girl up once again. “Does that mean we can go now?”

   Harry waved his hand to shush him, then met the leader’s eyes again. “We can leave, yes?” he said, and took a slow step backwards.

   The leader’s eyes narrowed. “Oh damn it,” whispered Parvati, anticipating more trouble, but then the woman gave them a single nod.

   “Go,” whispered Harry, before the other _Ungezähmts_ changed their minds. But they seemed more interested in tending to their friends rather than following them as they made a hasty retreat up the path.

   They ran in silence for a good five minutes before Harry called for them to stop and catch their breath. They had dropped down into a small inclination with a rock face rising up to their left, and it seemed to offer a good amount of cover.

_“Muffliato,”_ he cast, sound-proofing their conversation as they panted and dropped to the once again snowy floor. “Everyone okay?”

   “I’m not sure,” said Parvati, her voice a little shaky, and began peeling off her charred coat.

   Seamus hopped over to her. “Hang on,” he said, giving her a hand as she grimaced. Harry stepped over to see what the problem was, and it was soon clear that Parvati had not escaped the little girl’s fire as much as they had first thought. She hissed as Seamus eased her holy pink sleeve down her arm, and could see where her coffee coloured skin was now shiny and red in patches through her jumper.

   “Okay, okay,” assured Seamus as she winced. “No one has any salve do they?”

   Harry shrugged off his backpack and rummaged through the supplies lumped together at the bottom. “Yep,” he said, fishing out a tube of cream.

   “We should really wash it first,” said Hermione.

   Harry took Parvati’s arm gently. _“Aguamenti,”_ he said in a controlled voice, producing just a trickle of water from his wand.

   Parvati sucked in air through her teeth. “It’s cold,” she said.

   “Sorry,” Harry apologised as it splashed onto the floor. “Can’t do much about the temperature.”

   “That will be good for it though,” said Hermione, smiling at the other girl. “Cool down the burn.” Parvati swallowed and fought back tears.

   “I didn’t realise it was so bad,” she said, and Malfoy sighed, loudly.

   Seamus’ head snapped around. “Something to say, Malfoy?” he snapped.

   “My name is Draco,” was the only response he got back, and the blond boy stalked off.

   “We need the light,” Hermione called after him though, and he stopped, looking over his head. The ball of sunshine was hovering directly above him as usual, and he huffed, before coming back.

   “That’s probably clean and cold enough,” said Harry, stopping his water spell. _“Tergeo.”_ The excess water siphoned from Parvati’s clothes, leaving her dry but still shivering as Seamus gently applied the salve.

   “Ahh,” Parvati sighed, obviously in less pain. “Thank you.”

   Hermione looked on as the skin became less pink. “It would be good to wrap it up too,” she said, looking to Harry.

   He replied with _“Ferula,”_ creating a bandage to protect the tender skin.

   Hermione pursed her lips. “Well, that’s one way to tie it,” she said, before she set about undoing Harry’s work and starting all over again.

   “Right,” said Malfoy impatiently as Parvati gingerly put her coat back on. “Can we go now?”

   “I was hurt,” snapped Parvati indignantly. “And these guys actually cared enough to help me!”

   “How about,” said Malfoy, his voice silky. “You help yourself, and listen when I try and save your life. Or,” he added, raising his eyebrows. “Just learn some bloody magic.”

   Parvati apparently forgot about her arm and shoved Malfoy with all her might.

   “Whoa! Whoa!” cried Harry, stepping between them.

   “You know why I don’t know the same magic as you!” Parvati shrieked. “Because YOU let the Death Eaters into the school and then THEY taught you all sorts of nasty things whilst _I_ learnt standard spells at home!”

   Malfoy didn’t move, he just ground his jaw together. “I’m not having this argument again,” he said. “We haven’t got time.”

   “No,” said Parvati, shaking her head and working herself up. “No, no, you do not get to _insult_ me and when _you’re_ the one who betrayed everybody!”

   “I didn’t KNOW!” Malfoy shouted back. “I just…” he closed his eyes and balled his fists. “I thought he was going after Dumbledore, not the whole school.”

   “What difference does that make?” cried Seamus, outraged. “So you _only_ thought You-Know-Who was going to murder one man!”

   “A man I was taught to despise!” Malfoy fired back. “I had no clue it would be a massacre! I was wrong, okay, I was wrong and I’m _sorry!”_

   Parvati shook her head in revulsion. “Is that supposed to mean anything?”

   Malfoy trembled and glared at her. “Not to you,” he said. “No. Let’s just go.”

   “I’m not going a step further with you!” Parvati barked.

   “Not this again,” cried Harry. “Guys, please, we haven’t got time.”

   Parvati shook her head. “Harry what’s wrong with you, you’re defending him, again!”

   “He knows where Sarah is,” said Hermione, indicating Malfoy. “He saved your life from that girl.”

   “I didn’t ask him to,” said Parvati petulantly.

   “And I _begged_ you not to come!” Malfoy shot back. He’d moved himself so he was beside Harry and Hermione again, facing Seamus and Parvati. He glowered at them through a fringe of ragged blond hair, and Harry was suddenly aware he was the tallest person there.

   _“We’re_ Harry’s friends,” Seamus retorted. “You’re only here because you’re a traitor who knows the way!”

   “This isn’t helping anyone,” said Harry. “We don’t know how much time we have left. Draco said-”

   “Draco!” spluttered Parvati, dumbfounded. “I’m sorry, did you just say _Draco?”_

   Harry let out a noise in frustration. “What does it matter?”

   Seamus looked as incredulous as Parvati. “It matters because he let that snake out, that he killed all those people.”

   “He can’t have let the Basilisk out,” said Harry simply, repeating what he had told Malfoy by the riverbank. “You need to speak Parseltongue to get down into the Chamber of Secrets.”

   Seamus and Parvati stared at him, mouths open for a good few moments. “How did you,” said Seamus. “I mean, what makes you say...?” he trailed off, looking at Harry funnily.

   “So what,” said Parvati, regaining her composure. “He still let the Death Eaters in, he said so himself.”

   “I didn’t have a choice,” growled Malfoy. “You have no idea-”

   “Oh,” scoffed Seamus. “I think I have a fair idea. You were told your whole life to be a good little Death Eater by mammy and daddy, and thought you would get all the credit when they took over Hogwarts, and never stopped to realise there would be death and carnage and actual _consequences.”_

   “Yeah,” said Malfoy, tight jawed. “Yeah, you got me, that’s the whole story. So hate me all you want, I’m still telling the truth when I say I’ve changed sides, and I _am_ taking you Potter’s sister.”

   Hermione went to open her mouth, then clicked it shut again. “What?” said Harry, seeing.

   Hermione looked at the others almost fearfully. “It’s none of my business,” she said, shaking her head.

   “It’s all your business now,” said Harry, wanting to hear her insight.

   She bit her lip and looked at Malfoy for a moment, who held her gaze. “But that’s not the whole story, is it?”

   Malfoy’s scowl remained, but he blinked, once. “It’s all that matters,” he said. “I let them in, people died, I can’t do anything about that now but regret it for the rest of my life.”

   “But,” pushed Hermione, glancing to Harry for reassurance. “You keep telling us we have no idea, that you didn’t have a choice. They made you do it, didn’t they?”

   Malfoy stared at her for a moment, then turned on his heels. “We have to go,” he said, stomping off.

   Seamus gave out a false laugh. “Oh nobody made him do it Hermione,” he said jovially. “His family are the worst of the worst, they torture Muggles for fun, he did it for the glory!”

   Malfoy spun and lunged for Seamus, but the Irish boy was ready for him and met him head on with a closed fist.

   “Stop!” shouted Harry, yanking Seamus off and pushing himself between the two again. “Stop it.”

   Malfoy was breathing in and out rapidly, his whole body trembling and his cheek pink where Seamus had grazed it. “There was no glory,” he hissed through closed teeth. “There was only fear. I was a child, I was twelve years old.”

   “Old enough to know what would happen if you let them in!” accused Parvati.

   “Old enough,” breathed Malfoy. “To know what would happen if I didn’t.”

   Harry’s insides went cold as Hermione’s eyes opened wide. “They were going to kill you?” Harry asked, still standing right in front of Malfoy.

   He chewed the inside of his cheek, but didn’t answer.

   Seamus sneered. “Trying to save your own skin, what a surprise.”

   Malfoy looked disgusted. “What difference does it make,” he said quietly, trying to turn away again, but Harry grabbed his labels.

   “What difference does it make?” he asked in disbelief. “If you did it because you wanted to, or because you were made to? That’s the deference between whether we should trust you or not, right there!”

   But Malfoy slapped him off and marched away again.

   “He’s just a scaredy-cat Slytherin,” said Parvati. “Selfish and treacherous, he doesn’t care about us, or your sister Harry, he’s probably just trying to finish the job, kill allthe students he missed!”

   Malfoy stopped, but he didn’t walk back this time. “I have,” he growled. “Every single one of those students’ names _etched_ into my brain. I recite them before I go to sleep at night, I see their faces, I beg their forgiveness, but that will never happen because they are DEAD and I just have to live with it. I have to try and do something with my worthless life now to make up for even just a fraction of that death and THIS is it!” He jammed his finger towards the floor. “Right here, right now, and if you don’t like it, I don’t need you, I just need Harry!”

   “Like we’d leave Harry with you,” Seamus retaliated. “You say they made you betray us, but you won’t say how, so why should we believe you! This is probably all a trap, we’re idiots for ever listening! We’re going to walk through this secret entrance of yours right into You-Know-Who’s hands, you’re going to betray us all over again just like-”

   _“They had my mother!”_ screamed Malfoy.

   The rest of the group stilled, and Malfoy bent forwards, propping himself up on his thighs, his fingers digging into his jeans.

   “Your mother?” repeated Harry.

   Malfoy’s eyes were unseeing, staring several feet in front of him. “They said it was for her own good,” he said through clenched teeth. “That she was being protected, but I’m not an idiot. I’m not an IDIOT!” He lurched forwards and the group collectively flinched backwards. “I knew, I knew if I kicked up any fuss, if I did it wrong, they would hurt her, kill her!” His gaze moved frantically between the faces in front of him. “What would you have done, huh? The only person in the whole blasted world that actually cared if you lived or died?”

   He gripped his blond hair and screwed up his eyes, tears leaking from their corners. “I convinced myself it would be okay, that it would be a duel between him and Dumbledore, that Dumbledore might even win!” He shook his head. “But then they let that _thing_ out, that snake! And it didn’t care, didn’t know who was pureblood or Muggle-born, it went after everyone – it came after me! And my father...”

   He stilled, eyes dancing in the middle distance. “He left me there. Just left me. I did what they asked, but it went wrong and he blamed me, they all blamed me.” He snapped back to the here and now, fury on his face as he shook his finger at Seamus. “So don’t you tell me it was easy, don’t you talk about _glory._ I had one person who cared if I lived or died, they took her away from me so I did what I _had to_ to get her back!”

   Harry couldn’t find any words to say. He thought of how, forty eight hours ago, he was willing to do anything to save Sirius, and it had taken him to a world where both his godfather and his parents were alive as well. What lengths would he go to help his mother, now that he had her back?

   How far was he willing to go for his sister?

   “I’m sorry,” was all he said in the end.

   Malfoy scoffed, and wiped the back of his hand over his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “Right. Everyone still died, didn’t they? And I’d _‘disgraced the name of Malfoy’,”_ he added in a mocking tone. “My father was disgusted, even though I’d done everything he asked of me, I was a black sheep to them and a _traitor,”_ he spat the word out. “To the rest of you. So I’m _so_ sorry if I don’t care what you think of me, or if you believe me or not, because there’s not much worse you can do to me.”

   He glared at them, though Harry felt like Seamus was getting the brunt of it.

   “Did you,” piped up the small voice of Hermione. “Save your mum?”

   Malfoy’s eyes took a second to dart her way. He considered a moment before answering, breathing deeply. “She came back home,” he said eventually. “Though I don’t really think I saved either of us.”

   “Okay,” said Parvati, flustered. “Okay, that’s not great, obviously.” She pawed at her injured arm fretfully. “But you don’t really expect us to just forgive you do you? You didn’t have to do what you did, you could have asked someone for help, an adult, or-”

   “I’d followed these people my whole life, I thought The Dark Lord was some kind of _saviour_ ,” Malfoy spat. “And then they were threatening my mother? Asking for help would have been like admitting there was something wrong, and I couldn’t do it – let alone to Dumbledore and his lot! No,” he said flatly. “No I don’t expect your forgiveness. I just thought…” He trailed off. “I’m telling the truth. I want to help you.”

   “Why did it take you three years?” challenged Seamus. “Why not go to the resistance as soon as you got your mam back?”

   The fight seemed to have blown out of Malfoy though. “Because it did,” was all he said, then turned, and began trudging down the path again.

   Hermione had tears in her eyes and her arms wrapped around her chest. “That’s awful,” she said.

   But Seamus and Parvati didn’t looked all that moved. “Don’t let him fool you,” said Seamus coldly. “He lies like breathing. That might be true, or it might just be a way to try and drop our guards down.”

   “Whatever the case,” said Harry, honestly not sure what to think. “He has the sunshine. Let’s go before we lose him.”

 

***

 

   They walked along in silence for some time. Since their encounter with the feral _Ungezähmts_ they hadn’t run into anything more unpleasant than a brood of nifflers, who had been more interested in Hermione’s shoe buckles than anything else. She had wanted to stroke the badger-like creatures as they’d sniffed her feet, but Harry had urged against it, just in case.

   Malfoy remained stubbornly in front of them, far enough away to be separate, but just close enough that they were still in the light. Harry’s eyes were fixed to the back of his head, mulling over what he’d told them about his mum. No one was denying that he’d been the one to let the Death Eaters inside the school, though so far no one had explained how he’d managed it which Harry found unnerving. But if they’d blackmailed him by threatening his mum…Harry couldn’t say he entirely blamed him if that was the case.

   He’d known his sister less than six hours, and yet here he was, in another country, risking his life and the lives of his friends to get her back. Some might call that selfish and irresponsible, but to him there was no choice. That’s what Malfoy had said to him by the river, that he’d had no choice but to do what he did.

   Seamus and Parvati were walking a little behind Harry and Hermione, and Harry was getting the impression they were talking about him. He couldn’t say he blamed them; their Harry would have had the right memories, would have been just as angry no doubt about what had happened at the school in their second year. But Harry didn’t carry that baggage with him, and because of it he could sense a gulf growing between him and the other two students. It must be confusing for them, not understanding that he was, in fact, a completely different person.

   Once again, he felt guilty about the situation he’d put them all in, and wondered what had happened to that other Harry. Was he somewhere else, was he nowhere at all? A new thought occurred to him, one that he and Hermione had not discussed in their alternate reality chat, and now he worried that maybe that he and the other Harry had _swapped_ bodies, that the other Harry was in his world, in his body with the lightning bolt scar. It was that thought that made him begin to appreciate the true extent of what he had done, thinking about how he would feel if the other Harry was pretending to be him. Maybe he was helping Sirius? Had Ron and Hermione realised?

   He shook the thought away. There was no way to know if that was what had happened, and in any case, it would be a while before they could spend any time looking into reversing the situation. He just needed to focus on the here and now before he could put his mind back to his original predicament.

   He was still struggling as to whether he could really trust Malfoy. Their history was of years of animosity and outright aggression. But that was in Harry’s own reality. Their history in this world was only a few hours long and in that time Malfoy had certainly been sullen and rude as always, but he’d spent almost every word professing his good intention, and Harry couldn’t totally ignore that.

   But Seamus and Parvati’s intense hatred was also hard to ignore. Harry tried to imagine it, Hogwarts under attack. He’d faced the Basilisk in his own second year, fought it down in the Chamber with the ghost of Tom Riddle watching on, laughing. But Fawkes had come to his rescue, he’d had the sword of Gryffindor to protect himself.

   But these students would have been going about a normal day, only to find themselves faced with a giant snake with a deadly stare. How many had died? Harry wanted to ask. Who? Neville, he knew, and that was enough to make him feel sick to his stomach.

   “How much further?” Seamus called out from behind to Malfoy, but the other boy didn’t look round.

   “Shh,” he hissed. “Not that far,” and carried on walking, hands wrapped around his satchel strap and head turned to look up towards the tree tops. The canopy was still doing a good job of catching the falling snow, but they were far enough up the mountain side that the air was thinning and the temperature was steadily dropping.

   Harry’s legs were aching from the gradual but persistent climb, and the last time he’d checked his watch it was approaching three in the morning. He couldn’t blame Seamus for asking how far it was until they reached the secret entrance, and he hoped it wasn’t long.

   “How are you doing?” he asked Hermione.

   She put on a smile. “Okay,” she said, nodding. “I mean I’m cold and tired and scared and confused, but this is the most interesting thing I’ve even done.” Her face dropped. “Not that your sister getting kidnapped is interesting,” she said hastily, but Harry waved her down.

   “I know what you mean,” he said kindly. “You did great, back there I mean,” he told her. “With the _Ungezähmts.”_

   She shrugged. “I just used the same spell over and over,” she said.

   “But it worked,” said Harry. “That’s all that matters. Until tonight you didn’t know you could do even one spell.”

   She smiled a little more genuinely at him. “That’s true,” she said.

   Harry turned back to the other two. He couldn’t hold their distrust against them, and he wanted to keep relations good as much as he could. “How’s your arm Parvati?” he asked, hoping she would see he was being sincere.

   She perked up immediately at his question. “Yeah,” she said, holding it up to show him Hermione’s bandages through the patches in her coat. “Feels alright thanks to you guys.”

   Malfoy slowed down, and within a few steps the others had caught up to him. “What’s wrong?” Harry asked.

   Malfoy was looking around. “Nothing yet,” he said slowly. “But we’re almost at the entrance I think.”

   “Don’t you know?” asked Seamus.

   Malfoy shrugged, un-riled by the other boy’s attitude. “Last time I was running. In the dark. Going the other way.”

   “Turn around then,” suggested Hermione, doing so herself and looking back the way they’d just come. “See if anything’s familiar.”

   Malfoy looked sceptical, but did as she said, taking in the trees and rocks and snow that looked to Harry to be pretty much identical to all the other trees and rocks and snow they had traipsed by in the past hour.

   But Malfoy took the time to study what he was seeing, then looked back the way they were heading. “This way,” he said, narrowing his eyes.

   They moved off the main path they’d been using onto a more slender track, pushing branches aside as they forged their way towards a clearing glittering with a dusting of snow.

   “More fairies?” asked Parvati.

   “Huh,” laughed Malfoy. “You wish.”

   Harry’s heart skipped a beat as the group reached the edge of the path, teetering on the clearing before them. There was an ancient looking stone archway opening into a large rock face, and from the way the steps lead downwards it presumably went deep underground. Two flaming torches glowed either side of the entrance, the little ball of sunshine over Malfoy’s head seamed excited to see them and went eagerly flying over to greet them.

   This must be the back entrance, thought Harry, but he couldn’t get too excited about it. Because between it and them sat a magnificent creature on a stone plinth about a foot off the ground, covered by an engraved triangular roof sat on columns as thick as the tree trunks. The creature had the face of a woman and the body of a lion, and was lying on her belly, front paws crossed with an amused look on her face. She might have been pretty if it weren’t for the sinister glint in her dark eyes.

   “What is it?” breathed Parvati.

   “A sphinx,” said Harry. She was just like the one he’d met during the third task of the Tri-Wizard tournament, though unfortunately, perhaps a little larger.

   “What do we do?” uttered Parvati, still very pale from where she’d been burnt. Her eyes were like unmoving saucers, fixed on the beast before them. She was barely breathing.

   “Whatever you do,” said Malfoy, his eyes equally focused, his tone low but strong. “Mind your manners.”

   “Good day to you,” said the sphinx, her voice seductive like melting chocolate. Harry felt his cold cheeks get a fraction warmer. “Do you seek entrance to what lies beyond?”

   Malfoy swallowed and stepped forwards. He tried to smile; it looked painful.   “Yes we do, gracious guardian,” he said, his empty hands slightly splayed in a gesture of submissiveness. “We humbly beg you for your clue, and would be honoured to guess its answer.”

   “We have to answer a riddle?” asked Hermione as Malfoy’s eyes flicked to her in panic.

   Harry nodded. “Sounds like,” he whispered. His stomach had plummeted, but he wasn’t all that surprised to see her eyes light up.

   “Told you you’d need me,” she whispered, a twitch of a smile on her lips.

   The sphinx had sat herself up straight. She stared at them all, tilting her head as if she was amused. “You may pass if you answer my riddle,” she clarified. “If you answer on your first guess I will let you through. However, if you guess incorrectly I will have no choice but to attack. If you decide not to answer, I will let you back away.”

   Seamus gulped.

   “May we hear the riddle?” asked Malfoy, almost managing to conceal the squeak in his voice.

   The sphinx returned his attempt at a smile, and began her clue:

 

_“In a marble hall_

_As white as milk,_

_Lined with a skin_

_As soft as silk._

_Within a fountain,_

_Crystal_ _clear,_

_A golden apple doth appear._

_No doors there are_

_To this stronghold,_

_Yet thieves break in_

_To steal the gold.”_

 

   “That’s it?” Parvati didn’t look too hopeful.

   “And this is the only way into You-Know-Who?” asked Seamus.

   Malfoy turned to face him as he walked back to the group. “Well you can go ring the front doorbell if you want?”

   “Do you think it’s about treasure?” said Harry forcefully, keen to avoid another argument.

   “Keep your voice down,” instructed Malfoy as he rejoined them, but it wasn’t the usual scathing tone Harry was used to. “She’ll take anything as an answer, she’s hungry and she’ll want us to slip up.”

   “Doesn’t anything in this forest get fed?” mumbled Parvati, hugging herself.

“Could be treasure,” said Malfoy, nodding, his hand on his chin as he thought.

   “I’m not sure I really understand what it wants to know, what’s the question?” asked Parvati.

   For once, Malfoy didn’t snap. He must have been deep in contemplation. “It’s describing something, we have to work out what it is.”

   “Like an object?” she whispered, eyes still glued on the creature.   Malfoy just nodded.

   “That apple stuff sounds a bit biblical,” pondered Seamus. “Garden of Eden and all that.”

   “But what’s with the milk?” asked Harry. “She said something about a hall and a fountain?”

   “And breaking in,” added Malfoy. “Maybe it’s like a prison or something?”

   Harry frowned. “You might be onto something with the garden thing there,” he said to Seamus. “I mean, gardens don’t have doors do they?”

   “Err,” said Malfoy, unconvinced.

   “There’s a pastoral theme, for sure,” said Parvati authoritatively. “What with the virginal representation of the word ‘white’, and how it talks about soft skin. That could go along side your Eden theme, the loss of innocence and so forth.”

   Malfoy rubbed his forehead. “I don’t think that’s quite right,” he said through gritted teeth. “Is that a Muggle thing, this garden?”

   “Yeah,” said Seamus. “But it still could fit.”

     “It’s an egg.”

   Harry and the others stopped talking and turned round. Hermione, who had been silent, now addressed the sphinx. “It’s an egg, isn’t it?” Harry’s breath caught in the back of his throat.

   “Er…might we have a discussion before we answer the nice big _monster?”_ cried Seamus in a small voice, his eyebrows disappearing into his hair line as he stared at the sphinx, feet rooted to the ground in fear. Parvati and Malfoy wore more or less the same looks.

   Hermione looked taken a back. “I – I’m sure that’s right, I’ve done this one before – haven’t you?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but rushed in to explain to her fellow students as well as the creature who was still watching them. “The golden apple is the yolk, the silk is the fragile shell and ‘thieves break in’, well that’s how you eat the egg isn’t it – by breaking it open.” She clutched her hands together nervously, now frightened by her haste.

   “Get ready to run,” breathed Malfoy.

   Harry tried desperately to recall the riddle to see if what she’d said made sense, but he needn’t have. The sphinx rolled her eyes, disappointed, and stood up, leaving the way clear for the five of them to walk through her stone gazebo towards the opening in the rock face.

   “You were very lucky,” she told Hermione, who looked like she might be sick.

   “Um,” she muttered. “Thanks – thank you very much.”

   They reached the tunnel entrance and Harry let out a sigh of relief. If he was honest, he probably knew things were likely to get worse not better. But they were out of the forest, and it felt like an achievement.

   Halfway down, Harry looked back up the uneven flight of stairs to see Malfoy standing at the threshold. Harry let the others go past as he waited for him, but he was talking to the little ball of sunshine. The snow had petered out as they’d approached, and a light rain had started, making the sunshine fizzle. “No,” he said, shooing it backwards. “You can’t come in here, you won’t work.” The ball bobbed expectantly. “No,” said Malfoy, leaning in. “I’m sorry you really can’t, you’ll go out.” The ball dipped, and Malfoy looked down at it. He fiddled with the buckle on his satchel. “We’ll be out soon, I promise. Why don’t you wait for us at the other end?” The ball flew back up again, hoped about a bit, then sped off into the night. Malfoy turned to see Harry looking. “What?” he snapped.

   Harry grinned and raised his hands defensively. “Nothing, nothing.”

   Malfoy seemed to realise everyone else had already travelled in. Fear lit up his features and he raced off down the steps after them.

   “Wait!” he called as Harry ran behind him. They landed at the base of the stairs and found themselves at the start of a stone tunnel heading right, illuminated by more torches.

   “What?” asked Seamus cockily, turning to face them but continuing to walk backwards.

   “Stop!” cried Malfoy, reaching out, but the word was barely out of his mouth before a shot of turquoise light basted out of the stone somewhere above them and hit the Irish boy square in the back.

   He slammed into the ground, skidding a good few meters before coming to a halt in a crumpled heap by Harry and Malfoy’s feet. _“Seamus!”_ screamed Parvati, and ran to him.

   Harry’s heart practically stopped. Malfoy swore loudly and shook his head, but he didn’t seem too concerned.

   “I thought that was further on,” he muttered as he leant down to check Seamus’ pulse. His eyes fluttered open and Parvati gasped out in relief, flinging her arms around him. Although dazed, he didn’t appear to be harmed. Harry and Hermione shared a cautious look of relief.

   “Come on,” said Malfoy calmly, nudging Seamus with his toe. “You can get up, you’re okay.”

   “How are you feeling?” Harry asked Seamus, crouching down. He glanced at Malfoy. “What was that?”

   “Don’t worry Harry,” said Seamus rubbing the back of his neck but smiling, “I’ll be fine. Bumps and bruises heal with time.” A frown appeared on his face as Parvati got him to his feet. Harry also stood, and Malfoy cocked an eyebrow at Seamus, as if waiting for him to understand something.

   “That was quite a hefty blast,” he said slowly, looking sideways, concentrating on the words. “I hope that it will be the last.” His eyes snapped wide open in shock and he clapped both his hands over his mouth. “Is it me, or do you find, that all I say comes out in rhyme?” he cried in dismay.

   “It’s called the Poematis Curse,” explained Malfoy, pulling out his wand and starting to walk down the shadowy tunnel. “It, as you say, will make everything you say come out in rhyme, but it won’t hurt you – I think it’s just supposed to annoy you to death.”

   “I never knew there was a curse, that made a person speak in verse,” lamented Seamus, shaking his head as they started walking again. “Not only rhyme, but couplets too – what’s a man supposed to do!”

   Parvati tried to stifle a giggle behind her hand, but Seamus caught her. “Oh, I see, you think it’s quaint, I’m here to tell you now it ain’t,” sulked Seamus. Parvati only laughed harder.

   “Hang on,” said Harry, catching up with Malfoy. “Are there curses or something down here?”

   Malfoy looked sideways at him. “Yeah. It’s sort of booby trapped. That was the warm up act.” He scratched behind his ear. “Someone’s idea of a joke.”

   “What!” cried Parvati, the laugh vanishing from her voice. Harry mustn’t have looked impressed either because Malfoy quickly went on.

   “I knew exactly what was down here when I left three weeks ago, I don’t think it’ll have changed.”

   “That’s reassuring,” muttered Parvati. Seamus looked like he wanted to add something but refrained.

   “Well how long is the passageway?” asked Harry, aware a lump of panic was rising in his throat. Would it be like the tasks they faced trying to get to the Philosopher’s Stone? Because they barely survived that.

   “A couple of miles,” said Malfoy absently as he eased his pace, looking carefully at the walls.

   “Two miles could hold a dozen tasks,” said Seamus from behind them. “I wonder how many could be our last?” He sighed in exasperation and rubbed his forehead. “Why can’t I speak a normal way?” he demanded to the back of Draco’s head. “I sound like I’m in a Shakespeare play!”

   “Shh,” he snapped back.

   “Seamus is right though,” defended Parvati. “What kind of things are we walking towards?”

   “Are there more monsters?” asked Hermione quietly in a rasped voice.

   “Um,” said Malfoy. “Physical and logical challenges generally. Some are quite inventive, some are simple but brutal.”

   Harry tried to swallow the lump. What had he expected though really? Wizards generally liked to be creative in the way they protected their things, there were normally dragons or drops to a sticky death involved. Why wouldn’t the bad guys’ headquarters be covered in all manner of imaginative obstacles? “So what’s the next one?”

   Malfoy had slowed down his walk completely and was now edging along, padding the walls with his spare hand every step he took. “Some big old spears are supposed to come shooting out.”

   Harry nodded his head. “Of course,” he said, and thought it best to start doing the same thing on the other side of the tunnel.

   He barely had time to register that there was no longer any ground beneath his feet.

   He and Malfoy yelled out as they fell into the pit that had crumbled through the floor. _“Stratifus!”_ bellowed Harry and a glowing net shot out of his wand, catching the two boys just in time. He looked through the loops to see a cluster of metal spikes of various lengths poking out of the floor.

   “You were right about the spears,” said Harry through dry lips, staring at the shiny spines reaching eagerly out for them. His heart thumped in his chest as he thought how accurate he was about the sticky deaths he’d just been imagining.

   “Yeah,” said Malfoy, not daring to move as he also stared down. “Just the wrong direction.”

   “Oh God are you okay!” cried Parvati from the tunnel a couple of meters above them, but Harry didn’t even try to turn and look. One snag through the net and they’d be goners.

   “Spectacular,” he called back up to them. His and Malfoy’s bodies were pressed shoulder to shoulder together in the belly of the net; twenty four hours ago Harry would have been repulsed at the proximity, but now he felt oddly reassured. They were in the same boat, him and Draco Malfoy, on the same path with the same goals.

   Right now that goal was not to end up as shish kebab in a godforsaken labyrinth in the arse end of Germany, and they were both equally united in their determination.

   “Don’t worry Harry,” called Seamus, “we’ll get you out. Just try your best not to move about.”

   “Genius Finnigan,” muttered Malfoy. He looked sideways at Harry through a curtain of blond hair. “Can you reach your wand?”

   “No,” Harry grunted. “Where’s that big knife you had earlier.”

   “Inside of my coat,” Malfoy assured him.

   Harry nodded. “Good,” he said. “Maybe try and keep it there?”

   “Gotcha,” said Malfoy, eying up the spears.

   “Harry,” rang down Hermione’s voice. “Is there some kind of spell that would levitate you out, like you did with the tennis racket?”

   Malfoy looked at Harry, half a smile pulling at his mouth. “She’s quick on the uptake” he said, impressed. Before he could respond Malfoy was calling back up to Seamus and Parvati. “Yes there is – would it be too much to hope either of you know the _Mobilicorpus_ charm?”

   “The one I used at the river?” added Harry. He heard a huff from up above, and then suddenly the two boys were rather ungracefully raised out of the net and the pit, and deposited on the other side of the tunnel. Harry rolled over in relief and dug his fingers into the stone floor. “That was fun,” he breathed out, trying to steady his heartbeat.

   “Yeah,” said Malfoy from his right. “Let’s never do it again.”

   “Are you alright?” Hermione called over to them, and after a moment’s pause, they sat wearily up.

   “Yeah,” grimaced Malfoy. “Hold still, we’ll get you over now.”

   “Let you lift us over? I think not,” scoffed Seamus. “Let’s just see what else we’ve got.”

   Malfoy scowled and Harry rolled his eyes. “Get over it Seamus,” he said good spiritedly, and the two boys levitated the remaining group members across the drop.

   “Thanks,” said Hermione, but Parvati and Seamus were still not happy.

   “You got it wrong,” accused Parvati as they started walking again, the flames from the torches flickering in the metallic tasting air. Now they were far enough from the entranceway, all that could be heard other than their footfalls was the dank breeze blowing towards them and the drip, drip, drip of water from the walls. Harry had to push away the claustrophobic feeling crawling over his skin as he lit his wand to increase their visibility. He was proud to see Hermione perform the same spell on her first attempt.

   “It was only slightly different,” said Malfoy, not bothering to look at Parvati, but she pulled a face.

   “Different enough to almost get Harry killed!”

   “We’re fine,” Harry interjected, holding up his free hand to her. “You got us out, so let’s just keep moving.”

   “It makes sense they’d change the traps up after Draco left,” said Hermione eagerly.

   “What is _with_ you two!” cried Parvati in exasperation, glaring at Hermione but obviously meaning Harry as well. “You’ve only just met him, what gives you the right to defend him! You don’t know what happened to us, you weren’t there!”

   “Don’t shout at her,” snapped Harry. Hermione had taken a step back from the other girl and had tears in her eyes.

   “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

   But Malfoy shook his head. “Don’t apologise,” he said. “You’re right. I’d hoped they wouldn’t change the defences, they weren’t scheduled to, but maybe they didn’t want to take any chances.”

   “I thought,” said Harry, trying to remember Malfoy’s words. “They thought you were ‘having a tantrum’? That they didn’t suspect you’d turn on them?”

   “You never do anything stupid when you were mad?” asked Malfoy with a raised eyebrow.

   Harry nodded. “Fair point.”

   “But we don’t know what we’re to face,” said Seamus, his arm around Parvati. “There’s all manner of death in this place. Malfoy said he knew the traps, but now we don’t know where anything’s at.”

   “So we deal with it,” said Harry, speaking from experience. “We take it slow and keep our wits about us. And _stop,”_ he added. “Picking at one another. You wanted to come, so we let you come. You can’t whinge every time something goes a bit pear shaped. Okay?”

   Seamus chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment, then caught Parvati’s eye and nodded. “Okay,” she said for the both of them. “But Malfoy should go first, it’s not fair if you get hurt because he doesn’t know what’s coming next.”

   Malfoy made a scoffing noise at the back of his throat. “I thought Gryffindors were supposed to be brave,” he muttered, stalking off. Parvati looked like she might retaliate, but Harry’s expression must have dissuaded her.

   She jutted her chin down the tunnel instead. “After you,” she said, and Harry turned to follow Malfoy, Hermione by his side, glad for a little space.  

   “Was that too harsh?” Harry whispered to Hermione, his eyes tracing over the tunnel walls, ceiling and floor, looking for the next obstacle. She gave him a small smile and thought a while.

   “I think they’re just scared,” she whispered back. “It makes your bad habits worse.” She nodded knowingly. “I get bossier in case you hadn’t noticed.”

   Harry shook his head in mock surprise. “Never,” he said and squeezed her hand.

   “Yes,” said Malfoy absentmindedly. Harry and Hermione looked at each other.

   “What?” asked Harry after a few moments passed as it was clear he wasn’t going to elaborate. Malfoy took them down a right Y turn, and Harry looked down the dark passageway on the left, his stomach flipping at the thought of what could be lurking there.

   “Hermione asked if there were any more monsters down here.”

   Hermione looked like she might be sick. “So...the answer’s yes?”

   Harry however was struck by something else. “You just called her Hermione?”

   Malfoy slowed a little to fall in step with them. “That is her name,” he said pointedly, then looked at Hermione. “Or am I pronouncing it wrong?”

   “Um...” said Hermione, a little taken aback by the directness. “No, no that’s right.”

   “It’s just,” said Harry, choosing his words carefully. “Normally you don’t. Normally...it’s something else.”

   Malfoy frowned at him. “Normally? I’ve only just met her?” he said.

   “I mean any Muggle-borns,” Harry corrected quickly. Admittedly he was thinking more ‘Granger’ than ‘Mudblood’, but ‘Hermione’ was just so…friendly.  

   “Ah.” Malfoy returned his eyes to the tunnel ahead, presumably looking for whatever beasty was waiting for them. “I didn’t even know there was another word to describe Muggle-borns until I got to school,” he said, and Harry had a feeling the conversation was over. But he would never know if it was or not, because at that moment, a bloodcurdling scream erupted from behind them.

 

***

 

   The towering vampire had Parvati by the neck. There was no doubt in Harry’s mind that was what he was. The angular muscles on his bare torso shone in the dim torch light, filthy feet peaked out from worn through leather trousers, his sallow face was triumphant. He rolled his skinhead, making his neck crack. Black swirling tattoos shone against his translucent skin.

   Harry took all this in as he, Malfoy and Hermione spun on their heels, wands drawn for the fight. The vampire thrust his palm into Seamus’ chest, forcing him to stumble backwards into the other three. Parvati screamed again and dug her nails into the fiend’s wrist but to no avail.

   “Let me go!” she gulped, tears streaming down her face as the vampire yanked at her neck.

   “Let her go or we will kill you,” shouted Harry, his mind racing. How had he got in, how had he crept up on them like that.

   The vampire hissed through a malevolent looking grin. “I am disappointed in you, young man,” he said in a thick German accent laced with amusement. “I’m afraid you do not have permission to be here.”

   “How did _you_ get in here?” Harry asked, putting himself between the creature and Hermione. “The Sphinx-”

   “Did not like the speed with which you guessed her clue,” finished the vampire politely. His manner reminded Harry of the way German officers used to be portrayed in those old war films his Uncle Vernon would watch on Sunday evenings; like a viper, smiling with glittering eyes, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. “I believed she is now in the mood for some human supper, and I was happy to oblige.” He bowed ever so slightly.

   Harry could feel that lump of panic in his throat again as the vampire stared calmly at him. He still had the weapons Malfoy had given them earlier, but he didn’t want to risk any sudden movements reaching for anything. Besides, he wouldn’t be able to get close enough to use a stake without endangering Parvati.

   “Get OFF me!” she shrieked, swinging her legs and pulling at his hand around her throat. He responded by taking his other hand, and wrapping it around her burnt and bandaged arm, and she instantly fell limp as she screamed in pain.

   “Stop it!” cried Hermione.

   The vampire looked affronted. “While I’m having so much fun?” he asked.

   “If you kill her,” said Malfoy sternly. “There will still be four of us and one of you. Give it up while we’re still willing to let you walk away.”

   “Ha!” barked the vampire with genuine delight. “You believe me to be frightened of a few little mortal children? How endearing. I am most certain I can break her neck before you even take a step.”

   “But you haven’t yet, have you?” said Malfoy darkly. “If you really thought you could take us all down that easy you’d have done it the moment you arrived.” He actually smiled, and Seamus looked at him in horror.

   “Don’t goad him, he’ll just fight!” he hissed at Malfoy, before turning to address the vampire. “Tell us what it is you’d like?”

   The vampire shrugged, amused. “To eat you, little poet,” he said. “I prefer the taste of females, so I will enjoy the two you have so thoughtfully provided for me, then drag the rest of you back for my friend. Bit,” he grinned. “By bit.”

   Hermione recoiled and shoved her hands into her pockets. Only Harry was watching her, so he hoped no one else was aware of how still she became suddenly, her eyes wide and turning to Harry. Was that a hint of a smile he saw?

   Harry recognised that look, even if he didn’t know what it meant. All he knew was Hermione was on to something.

   “You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” he said, stalling for time.

   The vampire laughed and jostled Parvati around. “Five little lost humans?” he suggested.

   “Magical humans,” Harry emphasised, raising his wand. But the vampire moved faster than he could almost comprehend, and in less than a blink of an eye his fangs were drawn and hovering over Parvati’s exposed neck. The entire group jumped and screamed, and when Harry looked, Hermione had removed her hands from her pockets, something gripped in the right one.

   “Utter one spell and I dig in,” said the vampire, the English expression sounding forced in his German accent.

   “Pack it in baldy,” snapped Malfoy. “I’ve got plenty of death on my hands, I won’t think twice about adding your name to my list.”

   The vampire didn’t look so calm anymore. His mouth was in a hard line and he yanked Parvati closer to his chest. “You are very insolent for one so young.”

   “We’ll let you walk away,” said Harry, a bead of sweat running down his temple. “If you just give her back.” Even he wasn’t sure if he meant it, he was just desperate.

   “Let her go mate,” said Seamus, he face drawn and pale. “Can’t you tell? The situation’s gone to Hell. Give it up while there’s still time – kill her now and you cross the line.”

   The vampire stared at Seamus, then looked at the rest of them. “Again with the poetry,” he said, giving a little laugh. “I do fear your friend may have lost his mind.”

   “You’re going to lose your face!” yelled Parvati, clawing at him and lashing out once more, but the vampire’s mirth just increased. Hermione used the distraction again to bring her left hand over and pull at whatever was in her right.

   “Enough!” demanded Malfoy, and the vampire’s delight quickly dissolved back into a dangerous stare. “I’m giving you one last chance to let her go.”

   The vampire’s eyes roamed over the three boys. “I feel maybe this delightful flower belongs to one of you young men?” He paraded Parvati around in front of them, her burnt arm twisted behind her back as he stepped them closer. “Well my dear, which one is your suitor?” he taunted, leaning in, breathing down her neck as she whimpered. “Who shall I make watch?”

   “She’s with all of us,” growled Malfoy. “And you are out of time.” He snatched a wooden stake from out of his coat pocket, but it was Hermione that got there first. As quick as a flash, she darted from behind Harry, an open bottle of holy water spraying its insides over the face and sculpted chest of Parvati’s attacker. She blinked in shock as the water hit her, but the German roared as he wrenched away from her, screaming in pain as his skin began burning to a crisp. Seamus pulled Parvati away and Malfoy darted forwards, plunging his stake into the vampire’s chest while he was still writhing from the holy water, making his roasting, flailing body disintegrate into ash.

   Everything went quiet, until Parvati burst into tears. “Twice!” she cried out. “How can I be the one attacked – twice?!” Seamus pulled her into a hug, shushing her and stroking back the strands of hair that had escaped from her now very scruffy plat.   The jewelled butterfly on the end waved its wings feebly. Harry watched as Hermione stared down at the dripping bottle she still held in her hand. Parvati glanced up and saw her too, and before she knew what had hit her, Hermione was engulfed in the arms of Parvati Patil.

   “You-” she sobbed, “saved – my – life!” Hermione patted her awkwardly on the back.

   “Um...you’re welcome?”

   Seamus shoved his hands into his pockets, shell-shocked. “Your quick thinking saved my friend,” he said, blinking in the torch light. “Otherwise she’d have met her end.” Hermione gave him a weak smile as Parvati continued to sob, but in a matter of moments she was off her and on to Harry, her head buried into his neck. She smelled like vanilla, blood and vampire dust.

   “And you!” Parvati cried spinning and turning to Malfoy. They stared at each other for a moment.

“It’s okay,” said Malfoy warily. “You don’t have to hug me.”

   “You stood up for me,” said Parvati incredulously. “After all the horrible things I’ve said?”

   Malfoy regarded her. “Yes,” he said after a pause. “They may have been horrible, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t true.” He looked awkward. “We’re all in this together, aren’t we?”

   Seamus stepped forward and offered out his hand. Malfoy looked down at it and raised an eyebrow. “I’m not saying you’re off the hook,” said Seamus, then his face softened a little. “But I appreciate the courage that took.”

   Parvati’s shiny eyes looked up at him. “Thank you,” she whispered. Malfoy nodded, ever so slightly, then accepted Seamus’ hand with one quick shake.

   The moment passed, and Malfoy cleared his throat and ran his hand through his clogged up hair. “Okay,” he said. “Shall we go find that giant spider then?”

   Harry swayed on the spot. “Marvellous,” he said.

 

***

 

   The quintaped wasn’t actually as tricky as Harry feared it would be. It’s five legs were thick as tree trunks and very strong, but it also made it quite slow and after being blasted by several stunning spells it decided it would rather crawl off and have a nap than eat the little humans with the nasty sticks.

   It wasn’t until they were well past the spider webs and cocooned dead nifflers that Harry was able to catch Hermione by the arm and form a decent sentence. “That was fantastic what you did back there, with the water.”

   Hermione nodded underneath her mess of tangled, mucky hair. “Thanks,” she said. “I forgot I had it, my hands were shaking so much I wasn’t sure I could throw it.”

   “You got him well good!” called out Parvati from behind them, followed by a relieved sort of giggle.

   “Yeah Hermione,” added Seamus. “You rock I swear, that was great what you did back there.” Hermione smiled back at them then turned back to face where they were walking. Malfoy was up ahead again, meticulously scanning the path ahead for their next obstacle. Harry leant into Hermione and hoped the other three wouldn’t hear.

   “How are you doing?” he asked. “Are you okay?” She looked up at him, her face a greenish white colour, speckled with human blood, vampire remains and mud from the Black Forest floor.

   “Actually,” she said brightly, “I’m doing pretty good. I’m very pleased I was able to help with the vampire, I feel a bit useless not knowing much magic, but that was really good. Hopefully there be some more things like that I can do.” She nodded to herself, and Harry had to marvel at her enthusiasm. “How about you?”

Harry had to look away from her. She was coping incredibly with this, should he be honest? “I’m...not so great,” he admitted. “I did something like this when I was eleven. You, me and Ron actually. Ron and I almost died.”

   “Like this?” she said, eyebrow raised.

   He indicated the tunnel with his hand. “We had to get through a bunch of things and then You-Know-Who was sort of waiting for me at the end.”

   “Eleven?” repeated Hermione. He nodded. “My god, you’ve probably got some kind of post traumatic stress going on, I bet this is freaking you right out?”

   Harry sighed. “Amongst other things.” Hermione frowned in concentration and he studied her.

   “Are you thinking,” he said, voicing his own reluctant thoughts. “That this is another sign I was meant to be here, in this reality, because I’ve done it before?” She looked sideways at him.

   “Maybe?” she said.

   He shook his head as they clambered over some rubble that had collected by the side of the tunnel; probably the quintaped doing some redecorating. “It crossed my mind too, but it just sounds so farfetched.”

   Hermione laughed. “Do you know what’s farfetched? My plan for this evening was to start re-reading Pride and Prejudice for the fourth time. Instead I’m in Germany, fighting monsters with a bunch of wizards. The universe works in very strange ways.”

   “How did you end up in Germany fighting monsters?” asked Malfoy. Harry hadn’t realised when they’d climbed the rocks how much closer he’d got.

   Hermione shook back her mucky hair, unfazed. “Harry needed my help.”

   “But,” said Malfoy, “how do you even know each other? Didn’t you just meet tonight?”

   Harry looked at Hermione as they jumped down the last few rocks. “I...saw a news report,” he said, going along with the story she had told his mother earlier.

   Malfoy blinked. “What’s that mean?” he asked, and Harry had to remind himself how unfamiliar the other boy would be with the Muggle world.

   “You know what a television is?” Hermione asked him, her voice adopting the same kind tone she used to explain potions homework to Ron for the umpteenth time.

   Malfoy nodded. “Muggles watch them, they have moving pictures on them, and sound.”

Hermione smiled at him. “Yeah. We have news programs on them, like newspapers.” Her face darkened. “A local channel came and did a story on my school, a...human interest piece.” Her voice was bitter, and Harry wondered if this wasn’t just a cover story, invented in a pinch to cover how they had really met. Was there really a news report?

   “It was about you?” Malfoy asked.

   Hermione sighed. “Not exactly,” she said. “It was what I’d done. I...” She looked to Harry, who took her hand.

   “Some kids were teasing her, they stole her stuff,” he explained.

   Hermione let out a little laugh. “So I made all the windows explode.”

   Malfoy stopped walking and stared at her “How old were you?” he asked.

   “Thirteen,” said Hermione, not stopping, so Malfoy picked up his pace again. “The journalist thought it was a freak weather occurrence, or maybe telekinesis, like in the movies, and came to interview us all. The school thought it was good publicity, made the place look exciting, so they let her ask us questions.” She bit her lip, and Harry could see the tears she hastily tried to blink away. “She made it worse. After that, they all called me Carrie, they knew I’d done it, and they threatened to tell everyone.” She brushed her coat sleeve over her face an sniffed. “I thought...I thought I would get shipped off to the government, that they’d experiment on me or something, so I kept quiet, let them torment me.”

Malfoy’s face was pinched, and he looked between her and Harry. “You should have turned them all into frogspawn,” he said vehemently, causing Hermione to laugh.

   “I didn’t know how,” she said, shaking herself and smiling again. “Anyway, Harry saw the report and it took him a while, but eventually he found me. He had that scare last night, losing a bit of his memory, so he decided not to waste any more time and came and found me.”

   “And she believed you?” Malfoy asked Harry, raising an eyebrow.

Harry grinned. “After she tried to hit me with a tennis racket,” he admitted.

   Malfoy shook his head. “You picked one hell of a night to make friends with us.”

   “So did you,” said Harry before he could think.

   Malfoy cocked his head at him, when suddenly his expression changed into one of realisation. “Aah!” he cried out, smacking his forehead. _“Iambic Finitus!”_ He waved his wand in a loose figure eight and shot a jet of purple light bang on into Seamus’ chest several feet behind them.

   “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” shouted Seamus as he stumbled backwards. He inspected his body and brushed down his coat. “What the Hell was that?”

   Malfoy just stared at him. Slowly Seamus raised his eyebrows and looked back at him. “Ah,” he said, a little embarrassed. “That was the counter curse wasn’t it?” Malfoy managed a small smile as Parvati gave a cheer and patted Seamus on the back. “Well...” he said. “Thank you. A little warning might have been nice though.”

   Their warning hit them like a tsunami.

   _‘NO – take me instead! Not Harry!’_ Harry grabbed at his chest and slammed into the tunnel wall as Lily Potter’s voice exploded in his head. “No,” he gasped. Parvati screamed out in shock and clutched Seamus’ arm, who in turn jolted off his feet and spun his head around. Hermione clutched her hands over her ears and looked over at Harry, terrified. Malfoy dropped to his knees.

   “No!” he cried out into the darkness. “No, take it back! Anyone but her, take it _back!”_

   Where Harry was from only he heard the voices, only he had to fight the urge to pass out as his own worst nightmares relived themselves in his skull. But here, here the trauma was far more inclusive.

   _‘Kill the spare…’_ Harry shook his head physically. This is here, this is now he tried to tell himself. _‘You see Harry – you’re just like me – we even look something alike…’_

   “Dementors,” he gulped, pushing himself off the wall and trying to stand and lift his wand at the same time.

   “WHAT!” screeched Seamus. “No, no, no, no-”

   “What’s,” grunted Hermione, “happening.” He pulled her to him.

   “Get your wand out,” he told her, then called to the others. “Everyone, wands out!”

   _‘You could have told me,’_ Ron’s voice echoed in his ear. _‘We could have both put our names in the Goblet.’_

   He could see the beginnings of ragged shapes materialising down the tunnel. The torches were going out. _“Quick!”_ he bellowed. “Ignore the voices. The spell is _Expecto Patronum_ , and you have to think of the happiest memory you can!”

   “Don’t hurt them,” whimpered Parvati from behind him. “Don’t find me.”

   “I can’t stop the voices,” stammered Hermione, her wand out but the other hand clutching Harry’s sleeve. “Can you hear them? It’s Jenny Richards-”

   “No it’s not,” urged Harry. “They’re your worst memories. Dementors make you hear them, and if they get close enough they’ll suck our souls out of our mouths.”

   For a second it seemed Hermione’s knees were going to buckle, but she righted herself. “Happy memory,” she whispered, her grip even tighter on Harry’s coat. “Happy memory.”

   “How could you do it?” cried Malfoy. He was curled up on his knees, hands over his eyes, fingers tangled in his hair. “Please...please...”

“Draco!” shouted Harry, panicked. He was the only other person who seemed to be able to produce a decent spell. “Draco we need to fight!” His shoulders shook, the shapes moved closer. Harry needed a happy memory.

   _“Expecto Patronum,”_ stuttered Hermione, her whole body vibrating with fear. “I’m a witch, _Expecto Patronum,_ I’m a witch and they can’t get me now.”

   Harry was never going to get home. His godfather would die. His sister was kidnapped and would probably also die. Voldemort was alive. The Ministry hated him. Ron was dead. He was never getting home.

   _‘Take my body back to my parents Harry.’_

   He couldn’t do it, there was nothing good left inside of him. He could make out individual Dementors now, their huge, faceless forms advancing through the shadows, dancing in the dark, eager for their pray.

   _‘Lily, it’s him – take Harry and go!’_

   Harry had found his parents but this world wasn’t right. There was too much horror and he would have to lose his family again. He was lost and he was alone.

   “I’m a witch,” whispered Hermione. “I’m not a freak, I’m a witch.”

   What could he possibly hope for? There was nothing left for him in any world. He sagged against the tunnel wall, pulling his arm from Hermione but she didn’t seem to notice such was her level of concentration. Parvati had her wand out and was trying between sobs to say the spell. Seamus was gritting his teeth. _“Expecto Patronum,”_ he growled, and wisps of silvery smoke curled around the end of his wand. But it wasn’t enough.

   They were going to die here. Their souls would be sucked dry and they would die in this cave where no one would ever find them. He slid some way down the wall. Then something crinkled in his jeans pocket.

   He snapped from his reverie. In an instant, his hand was in his pocket; he didn’t need to look at to realise what it was. It was the Potters’ family portrait.

   There was a world where his family had survived, where he’d had a life with them. He’d somehow managed to find that world. Hermione was right – no matter what happened now, he would always know that. He would always know there was a world where he’d saved her, Hermione, from a life in the dark, tormented by powers she didn’t understand. In this world, Sarah Potter had been able to rely on her brother when she needed him the most. In this world Draco Malfoy wanted forgiveness and people still fought the Death Eaters, no matter what the odds.

   “I’m a witch!” cried Hermione as the monsters loomed above them, their black cloaks swarming around their bodies, blocking out the light. “I’m a witch! I’m a WITCH!” She flung her arm back then threw it as hard as she could towards the Dementors. _“EXPECTO PATRONUM!”_

   A silver leopard, wild and majestic, burst from the tip of her wand. She tripped backwards in shock as it tore after the Dementors who cowered at its presence. A thrill of hope hoisted Harry from the tunnel wall, a grin breaking through his face.

   _“EXPECTO PATRONUM!”_ he mimicked, and Prongs the stag erupted into being, chasing after the wildcat, scattering the soul-sucking demons.

   He didn’t dare breathe until every single flicker of movement had abated and the torches were shining brightly again. All he could hear was his own panting, and gradually he tore his eyes away from the tunnel to look at his companions. “Is everyone okay?”

   “Are they gone?” whispered Parvati from the floor. “Are we safe?”

   “What,” said Seamus sternly, his eyes fixated on Hermione. “In the name of God was that?”

   “It was a Patronus,” said Harry hastily. “Are you all okay? No more voices?” Parvati shook her head slowly, but Seamus marched over to Hermione and took Sarah’s wand off her.

   “I couldn’t do that!” he cried. “I’ve been to school, how did you do that?” Hermione raised her eyebrow.

   “Despite the circumstances,” she said, plucking the wand back from his hand. “I have not been this happy since I was six years old. I’m a witch and it’s brilliant. All I had to do was add the words.”

   “What’s wrong with Malfoy,” asked Parvati, concerned. Harry realised with a jolt he was slumped on the floor, his eyes shut. He crouched down next to him and felt his pulse.

   “He’s passed out,” he informed them, carefully heaving Malfoy’s limp body into a sitting position. “I did the same thing the first time I met a Dementor. He must have seen some pretty traumatic stuff.”

   “You’ve met a Dementor before?” asked Parvati, mouth hanging open.

   “It was like I was back at the school,” said Seamus, shaking his head and staring at the wall. “I could hear them all-”

   “Me too,” said Parvati quickly, taking hold of his arm. “It was like the snake was back with us. Was that what you heard Harry?”

   Harry thought it best to ignore them, the answers wouldn’t make any sense. Instead he pulled his backpack off and rolled his shoulder blades in relief. He rummaged through the bag’s contents until he found the two bars of Honeydukes chocolate he’d spotted his mother putting in. He began handing out chunks of the caramel and popcorn bar. “This will help you feel better,” he said as they began eating. He turned his attention back to Malfoy, holding the chocolate under his nose. “Draco,” he said, shaking his shoulder gently as he took a bite himself. “C’mon buddy, it’s cool, you can wake up now.”

   His face twitched, and Harry smiled in relief. But as soon as Malfoy’s eyes opened Harry realised something was still very wrong. Malfoy seized his arms, knocking the chocolate to the ground. Tears filled his eyes and he sucked in panicked breaths.

   “No!” he gasped, grabbing Harry’s shoulders and looking wildly around. “No, no, no-” He was shaking, his face taut and his chest heaving as he fought against the air in his lungs. Harry could feel the other three students stood frozen behind him, captivated by the sheer force of energy radiating from Draco Malfoy.

   “Draco, it’s okay,” said Harry, glancing at the others for help, but they met him with blank looks of trepidation. He turned back to the broken boy on the floor. “They’ve gone-”

   “I couldn’t stop them!” Malfoy cried, leaning forward into Harry’s face. His eyes were popping from their sockets; Harry took hold of his wrists.

   “Who?” he said, his heart thudding. “What are you talking about?”

   Malfoy shook his head, tears lining his face. “It’s my fault, all my fault – why did I have to...why couldn’t I-”

   “Draco you need to calm down,” Harry said in what he hoped was a commanding but reassuring sort of a voice. “You’re here, with us, in Germany. Those Dementors made you hear things but they’re in the past.”

   “It’s alright Draco,” said Hermione over Harry’s shoulder. He looked up at her, then blinked as if seeing her for the first time. She knelt down beside Harry. “I heard things too, awful things, but it’s okay, it wasn’t real.”

   Malfoy looked appalled. “Of course it’s _real,”_ he cried, his fingers digging into Harry’s flesh, even through his coat. “She’s gone and it’s all because of me, why didn’t I...I...”

   Harry felt Hermione’s hand on his back, and he turned to see her eyebrows raised at him. Parvati’s hand was over her mouth, body rigid.

   “Who’s gone?” Harry asked Malfoy tentatively.

   Malfoy lashed out, shoving Harry away with a roar, baying at the tunnel’s roof, scrambling to his feet and throwing himself at the wall, ricocheting from one side to the other as he screamed and tugged at his hair.

   Harry found himself being picked up by Seamus, but he hardly noticed, his whole attention was on Malfoy. “Draco,” he said, trying to catch him as he spun between the walls. “Draco – DRACO!” He snatched a handful of his coat and yanked him towards him, and the two boys slammed into the rock on his right, sliding down to the dusty floor, gripping onto one another. “Draco,” said Harry again. And he realised that was who he was seeing; not Malfoy. This was not his childhood enemy. This was a boy called Draco, and right now, his heart was breaking.

   He made himself think of him as Draco, testing the name as the other boy stared at the ground, for so long Harry began to think he wasn’t going to answer. His grip eventually lessened on his shoulders, so Harry did the same, and he took several long breaths. Finally, he rasped out two lonely words, barely audible even though the tunnel was hushed and waiting for him.

   “My,” he whispered, eyes flat and unseeing. “Mother.”

   An icy cold sensation washed over Harry.

   “But,” said Hermione from above them. “You said you saved her, that you got her back.”

   Draco didn’t move, it loved like all his concentration was going into every breath he was taking, and tears dripped unnoticed from his chin.

   “He said,” repeated Harry through a constricted throat. “That he never really saved either of them.” He was too raw, his mother’s words were still ringing in his ears, her last, terrified moments trying to save his life, brought back to him thanks to the Dementors. Meeting her a few hours ago, only to be reminded that in his world she was long gone, kicked up his own grief like a hornets’ nest. He felt his eyes getting hot, his skin tingling as his years of loss crept over him afresh.

   “What happened after the school closed Draco?” he asked, still holding onto his shoulders, looking at him for any answers. “Did they kill her anyway?”

   “Not right away,” said Draco. His eyes were still listless, but the corner of his mouth pulled in a rueful smile. “Where’s the fun in that?”

   “They held it over you?” said Hermione, crouching down beside the two boys as Parvati and Seamus watched on.

   “My great shame,” said Draco. “My failure to lead The Dark Lord to Dumbledore unimpeded.” He laughed and squeezed his eyes. “They had to have a scapegoat I guess, they were so angry. _So_ angry.”

   “Did they hurt her?” asked Parvati in a small voice.

   Draco shuddered and rubbed his eyes, coming partially out of his reverie. “They just sort of ignored us,” he admitted. “We were shunned, and that was fine. But I always felt it there, like a sword of Damocles.”

   “What?” Harry asked.

   “His rage,” said Draco darkly, pulling his hands from Harry and wrapping them round himself. “For three years.”

“You mean,” said Harry slowly. “This just-”

   “Happened,” supplied Hermione when the words died on Harry’s lips.

   “There was bound to be a trigger, eventually, some excuse he could use.” Draco’s voice had become dead, like he was reciting someone else’s story. “It turned out to be an orphanage...care home, whatever Muggles call it. He said it had to burn, something personal.”

   “Do you mean You-Know-Who?” asked Parvati, hovering over Harry’s shoulder.

   “She said children were still children no matter what,” he whispered. “She argued back, but you _never argue!_ He goaded her, it was just what he’d been waiting for.” He closed his eyes. “After I failed.”

   Hermione reached to comfort him, but Draco seemed to sense the movement. His eyes flew open and he recoiled away from her. “Didn’t you just hear what I said!” he shouted at her, scuttling back from her and Harry. “The only person that I ever cared about died, was _murdered,_ to teach me a lesson! And my _father,”_ he spat. “My father just watched, he _watched!”_

   Harry’s insides contorted as Draco brought his knees up to his chin and began to rock. “I couldn’t move fast enough, couldn’t stop them, no one cared, not _one_ of them.” He hiccupped and rocked backwards, leaning against the wall again. His chest juddered, but his breathing became calmer in between. “I ran. I ran as far as I could but I’ll never get away, never.”

   “That’s why you joined Freiheit,” said Seamus, his face slack, hand gripped fiercely around his wand. “Three weeks ago, that’s what happened.” Harry sat on the ground and stared at him. Voldemort had murdered his mother right in front of his eyes. Just like he had done to Harry.

   “For three years,” said Draco shakily. “I tried to forget what happened at that school. But he never forgot. She was the only one-” he cried, his face crumbling. “The only one there for me, and now she’s gone and it’s my fault-”

   “It is _not_ your fault,” snapped Harry, reaching forwards and grabbing his shoulders again. “You didn’t kill her,” he said, with a firm shake for good measure. “You-Know-Who did, and now we’re going to stop him doing it again. He is a monster and he is insane.”

   “But if I had done what we wanted, if I had-”

   “What?” cried Harry. “Helped him kill all the Mudbloods? Taken over the school, the country?”

   Draco’s face turned thunderous. “My mother is dead!”

   _“So is mine!”_ yelled Harry back before he could stop himself. Draco swung at him, and Harry heard the sickening crack as his fist connected with his face and warm blood spurted from his nose.

   “Don’t you ever...ever...” Draco seethed. Harry sat back up and saw Seamus holding him back, but it wasn’t with the same malice as before. It was more just to keep him from hurting Harry again. Hermione was by Harry’s side, Parvati was looking anxiously between the two.  

   Draco was breathing in and out, his face shining from the tears, eyes stuck on Harry. “Don’t you ever...” he uttered again. But Harry began nodding, slowly.

   “I’m sorry,” he said. Draco remained rigid a minute longer, then suddenly deflated, hands over his eyes again and Seamus let him go. He came over to Harry, wand out to fix yet another broken nose.

   “But,” he said after finishing the spell. “You’re mam’s fine?”

   Harry sighed. “I didn’t really mean it,” he said, checking his nose delicately with his fingers. “Dunno why I said it.” Seamus frowned and said nothing more.

   But he did mean it.

 

***

 

   They sat in the tunnel for a while. Harry handed out the other bar of orange and chilli chocolate, eventually convincing Draco to have some. As expected, his terrible depression lifted noticeably as soon as he took a bite. He fished the rest of the bar off at Harry’s insistence.

   He wiped his mouth and his eyes. “Sorry I hit you,” he said. Harry shrugged.

   “Now we’ve all had our noses broken. It’s like a blood pact.”

   “Erm,” said Parvati, giving her hand a little wave. “I’m alright not being in the pact, my nose is just fine thanks.” The group managed a small laugh. It was almost four in the morning, and Harry could feel his eyelids drooping.

   They got moving again soon after that, fearful of what would happen if they started sleeping. Harry was shivering uncontrollably now, and began wracking his brains for a spell that might warm them up. Draco seemed very weary. The zest with which he’d been scrutinising the approaching passageway had blown out, and he was staring at the ground as he slowly walked by Harry’s side.

   “I feel so numb,” he said after a while. Harry was aware that they had dropped to the back of the group, but felt like maybe Draco was in a fragile state of mind and the best thing could be to let him talk it out. It was niggling him though who was inspecting for traps.

   “I know,” said Harry, shoving his thoughts away and his hands in his pockets. “What I said before – I meant I’ve seen him kill someone, and I feel like it’s my fault.” It was the truth after all. The painful image of Cedric Diggory’s lifeless body swam in front of his eyes, and he tried to blink it away. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” The torch light was dancing about a bit more than usual and the shadows were deepening. Harry had to concentrate where he was putting his numb feet in case he tripped.

   “I screwed up...and she had to pay the price,” Draco replied quietly.

   Harry sighed. There was nothing he could really say to that. “She’d be proud of what you’re doing now though.”

   “Hmm,” said Draco.

   A noise that was hard to place echoed through the tunnel from up ahead. Draco stopped walking, concern crossing his face. “What the-?” cried Parvati. Harry realised the last torch was hanging by his head, and beyond that petered into darkness.

   “Are – are we wet?” stuttered Hermione, and Seamus swore loudly, his legs splashing through what Harry now understood to be fair height of water. That must have been the strange sound he heard. Draco gasped.

   “Get out!” he cried, racing towards them, pushing Harry backwards as he went. “Stay back!” he ordered. Harry pulled out his wand, lit it and made his way forward anyway. Draco had grabbed a hold of Seamus, Parvati and Hermione and yanked them out of what seemed to be the edge of an underground lake.

   Once on dry ground Draco spun towards Hermione, dropped to his knees, threw open her coat and ran his hands all the way up and down the laddered tights on her drenched and shaking legs. Hermione froze. Harry’s mouth dropped open.

   Having swept every inch of her legs, Draco turned and went for Parvati. “Hey!” she yelped and jumped backwards, swiping at him. “Hands off!” Hermione still hadn’t moved.

   “The lake,” said Draco, pointing out into the distance. “It’s full of grindylows, they’ll latch on and pull you under.”

   “Oh,” said Parvati. She and Seamus looked at each other, then began patting down their legs through their jeans.

   “I was so cold,” chattered Hermione finally. “I didn’t feel the water.” Harry quickly siphoned off the remains of the lake from her clothes and she stopped shaking so violently. Once he’d done the same to Seamus and Parvati the five of them turned and stared out into the black.

   “How big is it?” asked Seamus. In response, Draco lit his wand like Harry and held it above his head. Harry lifted his up too, and soon Seamus and Parvati were doing the same.

   “Lumos,” muttered Hermione, copying what she’d seen the others do. They shone their lights are far as they would reach, but the lake was at least as wide as a football pitch once it filled out, and the end was nowhere in sight.

   “So...grindyblows pull you under?” asked Hermione.

   “Grindylows,” corrected Draco. “And yeah, they do, they’re like big leaches with fingers, sort of underwater gnomes.” He took a few steps closer and peered through the water. “There’s other things in there though I’m sure, bigger, meaner things.”

   “Oh good,” said Parvati.

   Draco frowned. “I was planning on making a bridge over, but I had no idea it would be this huge.” Harry was glad to see some life had come back into his eyes with the presentation of a problem. There would be time to grieve later. For them both.

   “Could we...climb the walls or something?” asked Seamus slowly. “Like rock climbing, but upside down.”

   Draco folded his arms. “I’m pretty sure there are things in there that would reach out and grab us. And I’m not sure any of us would have the upper body strength for that.”

   “Yeah,” said Parvati quietly. “Definitely not me.”

   “Could we levitate over again, like the pit?” asked Hermione, but Harry shook his head.

   “It’s too far. And we’d need to be able to see where we were landing to perform the spell.”

   “Could we scare the monsters away?” suggested Parvati. Draco raised an eyebrow.

   “Unless you’ve got something seriously hideous hidden away in that coat, I’d guess not.”

   “Sadly not,” replied Parvati derisively.

   “Well,” said Hermione, not giving up. “Could you...I don’t know, change the molecular state of the water, are their spells for that?” Harry and the others looked blankly at her.

   “Is that science stuff again?” he asked, and she nodded, enthusiastically.

   “I mean, could you change it from a liquid to a solid, so we could walk over and the monsters couldn’t get us.”

   “Ah!” said Seamus in delight, almost before she’d finished talking. He winked at Parvati, then swooped down to the edge of the water. _“Transpirta Glacon!”_ Blue sparks shot from the tip of his wand and connected with the surface of the lake. Instantly the water began to freeze, delicate blue crystals joining together to form one thick sheet of ice that was blossoming out to the edges of the cavern and stretching out into the distance.

   “Wow,” breathed Harry, a smile creeping unavoidably onto his face. Parvati watched open mouthed as she realised what Seamus was doing, then squealed like an excited child. She flapped her hands and did a little dance, then slammed herself down onto the tunnel floor. Pointing her wand at the base of her left trainer, she fired out a spell and wiggled her foot in anticipation. A long blade sprouted from down the middle of the pink shoe, and in no time at all it was transformed into an ice skate. Her right trainer was changed just as quick, and she jumped back up onto her feet, pointing at the now entirely frozen lake.

   “I can skate!” she cried. As she raced off and flung herself at the ice, Harry was pleased to see Draco and Hermione looked as perplexed as he felt. Seamus on the other hand managed a weak grin before flopping backwards onto the ground, panting as a sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead, plastering sandy blond hair down onto his face.

   “Are you alright?” asked Hermione alarmed. Seamus held up a hand and nodded.

   “Haven’t done that much magic in years,” he breathed. He ran his hand through his slick hair, pushing it off his head. “I’ll be alright in a minute.” It was funny, how they didn’t know a lot of spells that Harry did, then could come up with something randomly useful like that.

   Harry tapped his toe on the edge of the ice. It seemed solid enough, but then Parvati was off looking for a perfect 6, so he hoped it was.

   Seamus took a few minutes to recuperate, and Harry spent the time blowing into his cupped hands and stamping his feet. If it was cold before the lake turned into a rink, it was borderline arctic now. The four of them carefully followed after Parvati, who was gliding around up ahead. “Does anyone else want blades?” she called back at them mid pirouette.

   “No thanks,” Harry replied. He wouldn’t know what to do with them. Everybody else called back they were okay without them, and then started trying to slide their way across the expansive lake. It was exhausting. Parvati continued twirling about, racing off then coming back to herd them along. The already tired muscles in Harry’s legs were protesting at the strain he was putting on them by trying to stay upright. Seamus was visibly suffering, all his energy having been spent on the spell. He and the others slipped over more than once, their curses ringing across the echoing cave.

     When the shore behind them was no longer visible, Harry spotted a hand of a grindylow sticking out through the ice making rude gestures at them as they passed. Harry pointed this out to Hermione, who acted mildly shocked, and then promptly slipped head over heels with Harry only just catching her in time. “Thanks,” she said, a little abashed, and carried on walking carefully.

   Harry lost track of time; when he thought to check his watch they had been walking for at least ten minutes, but he was sure it had probably longer than that. Dark shapes moved underneath the floor of ice. Harry squinted in his wand light and tried to give names to what he was seeing, but all he could make out was vague forms, bulks of mass ranging from deal-able to don’t-want-to-think-about.

   “Hey!” said Parvati excitedly, flying back towards the group and indicating over her shoulder with her wand. “Look, we’re almost there!”

   _“Finally,_ ” said Seamus, grinning. He held his wand higher too and Harry could see the edge of the water was only about a Quidditch pitch away.

   Suddenly there was great crack. “What the hell was that?” snapped Draco.

   Seamus looked down at their feet. “Grindylows with pick-axes?” he suggested. Harry snapped his head down, so did the others, and there were indeed several of the little blighters barring their teeth at them through the misty ice waving misshapen pick-axes. Another great crack appeared beneath them; the grindylows looked to be very pleased with themselves.

   “Uh,” said Draco. “Run?”

   “Bet your arse!” shouted Seamus as they broke into the best sprint they could over the slippery surface. Another crack broke across the ice under Harry’s feet, and he realised in horror that the grindylows were not the only creatures who had worked out how to attack the ice ceiling that had been unwillingly forced upon them.

   “Come on!” screamed Parvati, from the edge of the lake, hoping up and down on the blades of her trainer-skates. The ice was breaking up around them. Hermione, fumbled over several blocks as they cracked apart, avoiding the tentacles that whipped out after her feet. Draco and Seamus pin wheeled their arms, scrambling across the ice as the lake churned and frothed with activity.

   The edge was maybe twenty or thirty feet away, but it seemed like an eternity. They scrambled towards an hysterical Parvati, who was pointing and yelling at them to watch out. Harry just kept persevering forwards, but it wasn’t long before the inevitable happened.

   The ice beneath his feet vanished right out from underneath him. He shot into the freezing water for the second time that night and was plunged into darkness. He panicked, not knowing even which way was up. Luckily his hands found the solid ice above him, but not the hole he had fallen through. There was movement all around him, ice breaking and water swirling.

   And then came the hands. Dozens of little clawing fingers pinching and grasping, pulling him in all directions. Harry could feel his glasses slipping from his face, something was pulling his wand from his hand. His chest burned, he needed air, and the water was cripplingly cold.

   And then, something bigger was pawing, clamouring to pull him apart. He tried a disarming spell, but just like in the great lake last spring, the words had no effect underwater. Suckers were on his arms, tentacles around his waist, screeching voices in his ears.

   Harry’s vision began to slip away from him, he couldn’t focus, think straight. Then something grabbed his collar. With a sudden jolt, Harry was yanked up out of the water. Draco hauled him onto the solid sheet of ice he had managed to perch on, and he shook Harry violently. “Harry!” he yelled, pulling a number of persistent grindylows off him and flinging them back into the water. Harry’s whole world seemed to be swimming still, he couldn’t seem to talk, or move. He felt something jam into his chest.

_“Pleh!”_ he gasped as a lungful of water shot out of his mouth. He rolled over and heaved.

   “MOVE!” bellowed Draco, and forced him up. They were running on a relatively flat surface, but it wasn’t lasting. Around them shards of ice were flying in all directions, huge tentacles flailing, they kept sliding at all angles where the grindylows and goodness knew what else were hacking at the ice.

   Ten feet, five. With a final burst of energy the boys leapt the last few steps from the lake to the shore, hitting the ground rolling as they eventually came to a blissful halt. Seamus grabbed Harry under the shoulders and hauled him away from the turbulent lake, dropping him to hoist Draco away as well. Harry coughed and spluttered as Hermione dropped to her knees and hugged him as he shook violently.

   The waters calmed. Possibly aware their pray had got away, the aquatic creatures retreated from the surface, leaving the chunks of ice to bob in their wake. “Potter!” snapped Draco between gasps of air. “Would you mind awfully _not_ getting yourself killed?”

   “Sorry,” coughed Harry, removing the last dregs of water from his lungs. “I’ll try harder next time.”

   Draco let his body fall to the floor and he closed his eyes. “Cheers,” he muttered.

 

***

 

   Sitting by the roaring fire, Harry was struggling to stay awake. They’d magically removed the freezing lake water from their clothes and hair, then conjured a mini inferno in the portable cauldron Harry had packed from home. Seamus had done his best to heal their cuts and bruises, but even his medical skills couldn’t hide the drawn out exhaustion weighing them down.

   On the upside they were all much cleaner now.

   “How much more?” muttered Parvati sleepily. Her head was on Seamus’ shoulder and her eyes gazed into the middle distance as she spoke. Draco looked to Harry and raised his eyebrows.

   “What do you mean?” Draco asked her.

   “How many more tasks, how much further to walk?” Parvati said, blinking and focusing properly on Draco. She was shuddering even in the warmth of the fire. “I don’t think I can take much more of this.”

   “You’re doing really well,” said Seamus reassuringly, rubbing her back. Hermione watched her from beneath tangled hair, her body pressed close to Harry’s and Draco’s for warmth. As had become the trend, Seamus and Parvati were the other side of the tunnel, but the hostility that had been present before seemed to have dissipated.

   “I just-” began Parvati. “I know we’ve made it this far, but only just. I’ve almost died like five times in the last few hours, what else is waiting to jump out at us?”

   Draco pulled at his drying blond fringe. “I’m not going to lie,” he said slowly. “But hardly anything has been how I thought it was going to be. So if I were to guess on _distance_ , I’d say we were nearly there.”

   “But you don’t know what else we’ve got to get though,” finished Harry sympathetically. Draco looked warily about the group.

   “I doubt it.”

   Parvati looked back at Seamus. Harry braced himself for another fight, but Seamus just shrugged. “Well,” he said. “We kinda knew that before, didn’t we? We aren’t going to learn any more about what’s ahead by hanging around, I say we get moving and just get on with it.”

   Parvati gave him a weak smile and nodded, then turned back to face the other three. “Right,” said Harry, struggling to find his voice. “Okay then, I guess we should...start walking again then?”

   The other three nodded and began collecting their things. Harry turned to help Hermione to her feet, but was surprised to find Draco already doing it. Hermione gave Harry an inquisitive look as Draco carried on up the tunnel, apparently oblivious. “Just be thankful he’s being nice,” offered Harry.

   Parvati picked up the cauldron and reduced the flames until it was merely smouldering contentedly. She then placed herself in the middle of the group to keep them all at least a little bit warm.

   A few minutes later they came upon a puzzle of sorts, involving dice, a jar of frogspawn and a key amongst other things. Hermione solved it in under five minutes, keeping a hold of the old looking key afterwards, fingering it reassuringly. In the distance Harry could see something shimmering, and as he got closer he blew out a sigh of relief as he recognised the block of mist from the maze last summer. “This is fine,” he told the others. “It’s disorienting, but just keep walking with your eyes closed and you won’t have anything to worry about.”

   “Are you sure?” asked Parvati sceptically. Harry gave her a confident smile.

   “I’ll go first, watch.”

   He edged into the mist, instantly feeling like the world had turned upside down. He kept his breathing steady, placing one foot in front of another, until before long he was out the other side. He could see the blurry outlines of his companions through the couple of meters of mist, and he waved encouragingly for them to come through. Hermione was next, followed by Parvati, Seamus and eventually Draco.

   “Uhg,” he uttered upon his arrival and leant over his knees. “That was lovely.” When he stood up though, he sobered up completely. His eyes flew open in horror and he leapt in one fluid movement past Seamus and Harry. “Look out!” he yelled and managed to grab Hermione, who had wondered up ahead, just in time. As he threw her back a score of spears shot out of the wall on the right, impaling the wall on the left.

   Hermione hit the floor with a shriek as Parvati screamed out. Harry and Seamus swooped down to pull Hermione away from the still vibrating spears, when Harry realised there was a reason Draco hadn’t fallen to the ground as well. Bent double, leaning against the wall, the spear on the very edge was embedded in Draco’s left thigh.

   “I told you there were spears in the walls,” he said with a weak smile, all colour drained from his face.

   “Bloody hell!” cried Harry, rushing over to Draco, sliding his arm around his back to support him just as his good leg gave up standing by itself. “Don’t move,” he instructed as Draco braced one hand on Harry, the other on the spear in an attempt to keep the wooden pole tearing through any more of his flesh.

   “Not a problem,” he whispered.

   “You need to cut him down,” uttered Hermione, horrified, her hands more or less covering her mouth. Seamus already had his wand out, and with two sharp flicks of the wrist he trimmed the long end of the spear down to a foot or so, then detached Draco from the wall.

   Harry laid him on the ground as gently as he could, but Draco couldn’t help but moan and cling on resolutely to Harry’s hand, making the finger tips go tingly. With Harry’s permission Seamus began rooting around in the bag on his back for potion ingredients, and pulled out what little they had. Blood was seeping everywhere.

   Hermione carefully wound her way around the other side of Draco’s body and took his remaining hand. “Can you heal him?” she asked Seamus through white lips. Harry could see Parvati out of the corner of his eye, taking deep breaths and trying not to look at the blood.

   Seamus fished though the supplies, frowning. “Yeah,” he said after a moment. He tore his eyes away and looked at Draco as he panted, teeth clenched. “Don’t worry mate, you won’t feel a thing.” He picked a few ingredients up from the ground, then raised his eyebrows. “Actually, have we got any Dandelion Tears anywhere?” Harry and Parvati looked at each other.

   “What you see is what you get,” said Harry apologetically.

   “Ah,” said Seamus, nodding. “Well, this might hurt then.”   Draco rolled his head away and moaned, squeezing his eyes shut. “Okay,” said Seamus. “On the count of three.” Parvati put her fingers in her ears and turned away. “One,” said Seamus, “two…” He grabbed the spear with two hands and pulled with all his might. Draco shot up in a convulsion of pain, then crumpled back down into a foetal position. When he seemed to start breathing a again, a most impressive flow of colourful profanities escaped his mouth. “Three,” finished Seamus.

   He moved quickly then, cleaning the wound and knitting the flesh back together. Draco growled, tears leaking from his eyes as he threatened to crush Harry’s hand entirely. Hermione had to prise her fingers free, and was now cradling Draco’s head as he clung to the sleeve of her coat. Even Parvati knelt down next to them, placing her slender hand gingerly on Draco’s shoulder.

   “He needs a tourniquet,” said Hermione urgently as even more blood began pumping from the wound, but Seamus shook his head.

   “Not if I work quickly,” he assured her. He blew the fire from the cauldron, then began mashing up some leaves with a couple of different liquids. He muttered spells above the potion, sprinkling in something that looked like black pepper. Harry was immensely relieved he’d just grabbed a sample of everything when he’d packed his bag in his room, as it seemed Seamus was putting it to good use.

   Seamus packed the paste he’d made around the raw looking skin on the front and back of Draco’s leg, making him grunt out, then aimed his wand at the wound. _“Anaesthesos,”_ he said, and Draco relaxed immediately. “Better?” asked Seamus in trepidation. Draco relaxed considerably and nodded.

   “Much,” he said, squirming into a sitting position. “Thanks.”

   “Thanks for saving my life,” said Hermione quietly as she came back round to face him.

   “No worries,” he said, closing his eyes and leaning against the wall. “I bet you enjoyed that, didn’t you Finnigan?”

   “Little bit,” replied Seamus, half a grin on his face. He knelt back and aimed his wand once more – after a few well chosen words the blood on Draco’s leg vanished leaving only some very tattered denim behind.

   Hermione was looking between the cauldron, Draco’s leg and Seamus. “That’s amazing,” she said. “Just...amazing. You can heal him, so easily?”

   “He’s not completely healed,” warned Seamus, cleaning up after his spells, and Harry felt grateful again for their specialist knowledge. He and Parvati might not have had the same education as him, but what they did know was certainly coming in use.

   “What the NHS could do with this,” marvelled Hermione, but Seamus’ expression darken slightly.

   “One of the reasons Muggles don’t know about us,” he said. “I know it seems unfair, but they’d abuse us for something like this.”

   Hermione nodded. “I can see your point,” she said, but Harry could see she was still thinking about it.

   Draco’s breathing was steadying, and he prodded the shiny pink mark left by the spear.

   “Do you think you can walk?” Harry asked.

   Draco blew out a lungful of air. “I’ll have to,” he said grimly.

   Hermione shook her head. “You lost quite a bit of blood. Maybe you should rest a while?”

   But Draco shook his head back at her. “No time,” he grunted, using the wall to help him push back up on his feet. “I’ll be alright,” he added as he began limping his way between the spears still embedded in the wall at different heights.

   He didn’t get very far before Harry could tell he was struggling. “Do you want a hand?” he asked, and Draco nodded without protest, letting Harry slip his arm underneath his shoulder. He carried on limping, but seemed in considerably less pain. He rubbed his right arm against his stomach a few times, and Harry wondered if he’d damaged that as well.

     Presently they came to a huge oak door, ornately decorated with snakes apparently eating people. “Nice,” said Seamus.

   Draco frowned. “I guess this is it.” He reached out and pushed at the knob, but it was stuck fast. “Erm, Finnigan,” he said, turning awkwardly round against Harry. “Could you have a go?”

   Seamus pondered a second, then with a shrug skirted past them and threw his weight against the door. It seemed for a moment as if it wasn’t going to budge, but then suddenly it gave way, swinging in violently and knocking Seamus to the floor. He brushed his clothes down briefly, then looked up at the others.

   But they weren’t looking at him. They had all gone deathly still, and there was a soft growling floating up from behind him as he turned slowly round. Harry took a deep breath.

   “Hello Fluffy,” he said quietly.

 

***

 

   They were at the edge of a great room, with high stone arches and huge blazing torches. Fluffy, the three headed dog Harry knew all too well was standing at the other end, which really, all things considered, was not far enough away.

   Parvati screamed. Seamus jumped to his feet and made to run out again, but it was as if a great gust of air rushed them all off their feet, depositing them into the room, and slamming the door shut in their wake. Draco cried out in pain as he fell on his sore leg. Fluffy raised his hackles and growled even louder, taking a couple of steps towards them. There were bones all over the floor and a rotten stench filled the air.

   “What do we do!” cried Hermione, petrified. Harry thought desperately; they needed music to put him to sleep, it was like an instant knock out. They’d used a flute last time, but they didn’t have a flute, or a...or a...

   “Violin?” wondered Harry out loud. Something was surfacing in his memory. “Hermione!” he cried, pulling her to her feet. “Can you sing?”

   “What!” she cried in confusion. “What on Earth-”

   “Can you sing?” he yelled. “Properly, in tune?”

   “Yes!” she screamed back.

   “Do it!” cried Harry; Fluffy was stalking closer to them. “Sing – anything!”

   “What the Hell!” shrieked Parvati as Seamus clawed at the door, heaving at the handle. “Does that have to do-”

   _“Sing!”_ bellowed Draco, clutching his leg. “Anyone!”

   Hermione pulled at her hair in panic, wide eyes staring terrified at the giant dog. “Uh-” she whispered. “Um – er – oh! Uh _…I’m, giving you everything,”_ she began, her voice quivering but in tune. _“All that joy can bring, this I swear.”_ As soon as she started, Fluffy stopped in his tracks, his many eyelids drooping. Harry made a motion for her to keep going, so she did, thumbing the old key still in her hand from the puzzle. _“And, all that I want from you, is a promise you will be there – Say you will be there.”_ Fluffy curled up and started snoring, and they crept round his heads. Harry’s heart was thumping. He guessed anyone could have tried to sing something, but he had a suspicion that the more in tune it was the better, so he nodded at Hermione again and she carried on.

   _“If you, put two and two together,”_ she crooned, worry still alive on her face. _“You will see what our friendship is for.”_ They were creeping closer, foot by foot.

_“If you can't work this equation then I guess I'll have to show you the door.”_ Their own door was in sight, Harry looked back at the hyper-anxious group, but they were all falling to Hermione’s step, and a glance at Fluffy told him all he needed to know as the giant dog drooled and snored from all three of his mouths.

   “You’re doing great,” Harry whispered, and Hermione nodded.

   _“I'm,”_ she continued. _“Giving you everything all that joy can bring this I swear.”_ Harry reached his arm out and grasped the door handle firmly. It wasn’t locked, and he couldn’t help but grin in relief as he clicked it open. _“And all that I want from you,”_ Hermione croaked as they eased through the door onto the other side. _“Is a promise you will be there.”_

   Seamus and Parvati slammed the door resolutely shut, and Draco sagged against the wall. “Nice job,” he said, punching a still trembling Hermione lightly on the arm. 

   Parvati threw her arms around her for a second time. “You saved us again!” she squealed happily, and Seamus patted her on the back.

   “Did it have to be Spice Girls though?” he asked cheekily. Hermione tossed her shoulders back and mumbled something about the first thing that came into her head and what did it matter what song it was anyway?

   Harry was watching Draco. He was clutching his right forearm as if it was on fire. His eyes were closed as he balanced on his good leg, his breathing steady and long. “Draco...?” asked Harry tentatively.

   “We’re here,” said Draco, opening his eyes. Harry immediately stiffened, and the others stopped talking. Harry realised that although they were still in a tunnel of sorts, it was dramatically different to what they’d been used to in the last hour or so. The dank rock had been replaced with shining white marble, the torches were ornate with snakes curling round the brackets. Emerald green plush rugs stretched out along the polished floor and paintings of intricate battle scenes adorned the walls. The movement of the painting’s subjects was fluid and dizzying, their warrior’s cries unnerving.

   Harry felt a sharp pain in his forehead; just where his scar should have been. He gasped and his hand flew to the source of the pain. That wasn’t a good sign.

   Draco limped by himself to the end of the corridor. It ended in an engraved black door; there was no handle or knob, but instead a blank silver plaque in the middle of the steal. Draco glanced back at the others as Harry propped him up again. “I’d rather you didn’t look,” murmured Draco, and Hermione backed off respectfully, Seamus and Parvati following reluctantly. Draco pushed up the bulky sleeve of his coat, revealing a familiar black skull tattoo surrounded by several silvery lined scars. Harry took this in, then was about to voice his fears about what his own scar hurting meant, when Draco turned his head and swallowed. “Whatever happens in here,” he said through dry lips. “You’ve got to trust me.”

   “What?” asked Harry,

   “What!” demanded Seamus, but they received no answer.

   Draco placed his Dark Mark, the sign of a Death Eater, onto the silver plaque and the door swung open easily. He walked swiftly through, masking his limp as best he could, flanked quickly by the others. Harry was momentarily blinded by the bright light shining into his eyes; he flung his hand up to block it just as the others did. Almost as soon as they had done this though, the light softened to normal, and Harry lowered his arm.

   They were in a semicircular auditorium, with stone steps extending high up from where they were standing; the middle of the half-moon stone stage. The door slammed behind them, but Harry barely noticed. He was looking out at the scene that lay before him.

   There were people in hooded black robes standing on every step, looking down at them, arms folded.

   Directly in front of them stood Lord Voldemort. He smiled.

   Positioned either side of him were Bartemius Crouch, Lucius Malfoy, Peter Pettigrew, and the woman with curly black hair that Harry had seen in Dumbledore’s Pensive. Her lacy black dress glinted as she smiled the widest of them all.

   Harry couldn’t seem to breath properly, he must be in a nightmare. But he felt the pain in his forehead and knew it was real. He tried to find his voice, he had to ask Draco what was happening. But before he could, Lucius Malfoy opened his arms and smiled his cruel smile.

   “Draco,” he said warmly. “How nice it is to see you.”

   Draco smiled back and bowed slightly. “Hello father,” he replied calmly.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Draco?


	7. This Is War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m doing what’s right mother, I wouldn’t expect you to understand.” Blaise Zabini.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I mentioned before, I started this story for before OotP came out, and we don't find out that Blaise Zabini is a boy until HBP. Therefore, in this story/universe, Blaise is a girl, and we get to meet here now (yay!)
> 
> Right, it's time for battle, and Voldemort is waiting...

Chapter Six -

   This Is War

 

A warning to the people

The good and the evil

This is war

 

To the soldier, the civilian

The martyr, the victim

This is war

 

It's the moment of truth, and the moment to lie

The moment to live and the moment to die

The moment to fight, the moment to fight

To fight, to fight, to fight

 

To the right, To the left

We will fight to the death

To the edge of the earth

It's a brave new world

From the last to the first

 

To the right, To the left

We will fight to the death

To the edge of the earth

It's a brave new world

It's a brave new world

 

Thirty Second To Mars

 

   “Draco?” whispered Harry.

   _“What in the name of Merlin?”_ hissed Seamus.

   Hermione’s hand groped for Harry’s, but he couldn’t seem to process anything at all. There were so many people, too many to comprehend, all staring down at the four trembling teenagers flanking Draco Malfoy. And Voldemort, his skull-like face triumphant, Draco’s father equally pleased at his side.

   Seamus’ head was jerking from one direction to the next, hands in fists, muttering incoherent profanities in Draco’s direction. Parvati was frozen stiff, tears threatening to spill from her wide eyes. Hermione squeezed Harry’s hand. She was going to die, and it was his fault.

   “What have you _done?”_ Harry breathed, turning to Draco. But he was completely immobile, devoid of emotion, gaze fixed on his father. How could he have been so blind, Harry cursed himself furiously. All those warnings Parvati and Seamus had given him, he’d let his own idealism get in the way; he’d wanted to believe Malfoy could be a better person and he’d led them all to their deaths.

   And Sarah! What had happened to her, where was she? He was never going to get to her now, would she even ever know he tried?

   No one was speaking. Lucius Malfoy appeared to be enjoying himself, but finally broke the silence with a raised eyebrow. “Your companions don’t seem very happy Draco?” he commented nonchalantly. Draco didn’t flinch a muscle.

   “No,” he said simply. “They never suspected a thing.”

   “Oh yes we bloody did!” cried Seamus, lunging for Draco. Harry darted in to pull him off; they were so hopelessly outnumbered picking a fight would be suicide. Though as Seamus backed away, Harry lamented maybe dying sooner rather than later would be preferable. He clicked his jaw together and pushed the thought away. There was still time to try and escape, it wasn’t over yet.

   Lucius laughed softly to himself, readjusting his grip on the cane he was holding in front of him. The silver knob was covered in entwined serpents, the base ending in a wicked looking metallic tip. “You’ve done very well son.”

   The vile sense of betrayal Harry was feeling for Draco at that moment exceeded any previous animosity he had ever had for him before. It was one thing to hate someone who had always been a selfish, cowardly glory hunter, but to have built up his trust like that, formed a connection like that? Was his mother even dead wondered Harry bitterly.

   “I knew it,” Parvati was whispering, clinging onto Seamus. “I knew it, I knew it.”

   “I dare say,” Lucius continued, ignoring everyone except his son. “That this will indeed redeem you for that embarrassing scene you made before you left. Your mother’s death was tragic, but she would be proud to see you returned to us today.”

   Harry saw Draco jerk almost unnoticeably, more of a spasm than anything else. He didn’t reply, just nodded curtly.

   Voldemort took a graceful step down from the plinth they were on, the woman by his side eying him greedily. Harry had a vague recollection of Sirius saying her name was Bellatrix, something to do with Neville’s parents, but he couldn’t remember with everything assaulting his senses like they were. “It was a bold venture you proposed to us, young Malfoy,” said Voldemort, hands grasped in front of his body. His voice was silky smooth, like a snake gliding on grass. It brought chills to Harry’s spine, transporting him straight back to that night in the graveyard when Cedric had died.

   Voldemort came to a halt ten or so feet from where Harry and the others were standing. He was so fixated on the face that had been haunting his nightmares since the summer, Harry wasn’t sure if he saw something shine briefly green at the back on the hall. It looked like some kind of flare, but as Harry couldn’t see any relevance to it he dropped it from his fervoured thoughts. No one else seemed to have noticed.

   “I am pleased,” he carried on, addressing only Draco. “To see it come successfully to fruition. Though, I must admit,” he added slyly, red eyes glancing at Lucius. “There were times when we had our doubts. You did not seem to be in the best frame of mind when you left us. And Wormtail’s report from Godric’s Hollow this evening?” He shook his head and tutted. “But your father’s faith in you has proved true. You should be proud.”

   Draco’s voice was as tight as his posture when he spoke. “Thank you,” was all he said.

   “So this was all about winning back your father’s good grace?” snarled Harry, fury blurring his vision. Voldemort smiled, his skin a shining white beckon in the torch lit amphitheatre.

   “Ah,” he said softly. “And this is Harry Potter.” He extended a hand out, a gesture of welcome. “How nice to finally make your acquaintance.”

   We’ve already met, was what Harry wanted to shout. I’ve defeated you _four_ times. But he remained silent. He couldn’t kid himself; there wouldn’t be a fifth.

   “We have so much to discuss.” Voldemort said, almost warmly.   “Draco, I think it would be time for you to take your place by your father’s side, so that Harry and I might get a little more _au fait_ with one another.”

   Draco paused. “You would think that,” he said. “Wouldn’t you?”

   Voldemort become very still. With his waxy skin he looked extraordinarily like a statue. “Master Malfoy,” he said, his voice dangerously low. “Your actions have already pushed my patience to its limit. I would advise you do not play games with me.”

   Something dark flashed across Draco’s features, his poker face vanishing. “Oh it’s not a _game,”_ he growled. Lucius Malfoy’s cool demeanour was also suddenly replaced by a mixture of shock and horror.

   _“Draco,”_ he hissed, hand slipping from his cane. “If this still about your mother-”

   _“It’s ALL about my mother!”_ Draco roared.

   “My Lord,” gasped Lucius, abandoning his son without a thought and turning to Voldemort. “I apologise, I don’t know what’s got into him-”

   Draco laughed bitterly. Harry’s head was rushing with confusion, just what was going on? “What’s got into me?” shrieked Draco. His hair was standing on all ends, fists clenched, shoulders shaking. “Perhaps it was how you tricked me into helping destroy the school, or how you abandoned me to the basilisk. _Or,”_ he hissed, his face flushing scarlet. “It was how you stood by as my mother was MURDERED!”

   Voldemort regarded him almost impassively, only slight irritation pulling at his eyes. But Lucius was furious. “How _dare_ you talk to me like this Draco!” he cried, brandishing his cane. “Your mother was out of line, she abandoned her senses and had to be dealt with – it was justice!”

   “It was retribution,” snarled Draco. “I was your scapegoat and she was my punishment.” Harry couldn’t help it; he knew their situation was still almost impossible, but the quickening realisation that Draco hadn’t betrayed them, that he was still on their side, brought fire to his belly. As long as he was still his ally, Harry would fight until the bitter end with him. But why _had_ he brought them to the Death Eaters like this, had he known they would be here?

   “And so you chose to run away from us,” sighed Voldemort. “Into the arms of Dumbledore and his fools.” He shook his head. “Tragic.”

   “I’m not running anymore,” Draco said defiantly, his chin in the air, but Voldemort just laughed.

   “No,” he said, “no you’re not. You’ve decided to come back to us, in a rather spectacular fashion. You always were one for theatrics Mr Malfoy. But let me ask you this, where are all of Dumbledore’s fools now, hmm?”

   Harry drew his wand out and aimed it directly at Voldemort. “Right here,” he said as steadily as he could manage

   “My name,” said Draco, “is not Malfoy. It’s Draco. And yes, I am standing with the people behind me, with Harry Potter, because they know a little thing about honour and decency. You took the most important person in the world from me. You can’t hurt me anymore.” He flashed a dangerous looking smile. “But I’m pretty sure I can still hurt you.”

   Voldemort chuckled again as Lucius looked panicked between his master and his son. Pettigrew shifted uncomfortably, Bellatrix and Barty Crouch watched on eagerly. “Your spirit boys,” began Voldemort. “Is admirable. However I fear your courage does not quite match up to your mathematical skills. For there are hundreds of us,” he said, indicating the auditorium of people behind him. “And only five of you.”

   “Five?” was all Draco said.

   Seconds stretched out, and Harry was sure the thumping of his heart was echoing right across the whole auditorium. Seamus had his wand out, standing behind Harry and Draco, muscles tensed and ready for a fight. Parvati’s face shone with tears, but she was no longer crying, her face set instead with hard determination. Hermione was digging her nails so hard into her hands she had drawn blood. Harry took a breath, nerves screaming in anticipation, but Draco once again was completely still, eyes boring into his father’s face.

   Lucius turned away, unable to take the glare any longer. Voldemort frowned, obviously expecting more of an answer than Draco was prepared to give, and made as if to speak. But then a movement to the far left of Harry’s vision caught his eye. He jumped, and Voldemort noticing, also twisted to see the cause of the disturbance.

   About two thirds of the way up the stands of the arena, one of the countless Death Eaters lowered their hood and stood for a moment, considering. It took Harry a few seconds to realise he knew this girl, she was in his own year at school. Her name was Blaise Zabini, a quiet Slytherin girl who normally hid behind a sheet of shining brown hair whilst Pansy Parkinson and her gang tormented other students. Harry had barely heard her speak more than two words the entire time he’d been at Hogwarts, but he knew she was very clever.

   Perhaps the fact that her hair was now cut extremely short, or the fact that she stood confidently, shoulders back, expression scared but resolute, was why Harry had failed to recognise her straight away. Her eyes were fixed on Draco, studiously ignoring the hundreds of people now staring perplexed at her. She took a deep breath, visible even from where Harry was standing, dropped her black robes to the floor and took a step down towards them. “Blaise!” hissed a voice that floated across the taught atmosphere of the amphitheatre. A middle aged woman beside where Blaise had moved from yanked down her hood, gawping at the plain clothed girl as she paused. Harry stared in shock as he spotted two short blades hanging from Blaise’s hips, she gripped one of the hilts tightly as she turned to face the older woman.

   The woman looked wildly about, as if hoping her peers might intervene. Nobody else moved though. “Blaise,” she whispered again. “What are you doing?” Harry could hear every word the room was so silent.

   Blaise looked almost tearful, but she set her jaw angrily. “I’m doing what’s right mother,” she said, loudly so Harry didn’t even have to strain to hear her. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.” Her accent was extremely well educated, the kind you heard in films rather than in real life. She whipped round on her heals and trotted down the stairs, eyes on the floor until she reached Draco. Harry saw how pink her face was, how her forehead was pricked with sweat as she handed Draco one of her blades, squeezing his wrist and drawing out the other sword for herself.

Voldemort once again managed an amused laugh, which Bellatrix and Barty followed obediently.   “And now you have six,” he commented sardonically.

   “I’m not finished yet,” snapped Draco, eyes shining.

   All of a sudden, it seemed there were at least a dozen more robes dropped to the floor, their owners walking swiftly towards Harry and the others. Voldemort amusement lessened somewhat. “I see,” he said evenly. But then, to Harry’s right, another group of Death Eaters threw down their robes, deserting their Lord, and even more on the far left. More to the back, some very near the front, more and more were declaring their allegiance to Draco’s cause, most of them young, but some older members too.

   Harry felt his jaw drop open as he looked around at the throng of people clustering around them. _Freiheit,_ he thought unbelievingly, eyes dancing between familiar and unfamiliar faces. This was it, this was their moment of revolution. They were all dressed in Muggle clothing, their black robes discarded like the shedding of skin. They were pulling weapons from their backs, from holsters round their jeans. Clubs and blades and nasty looking spiky things Harry couldn’t give names to, not one of them sporting a wand which gave Harry pause. Their faces were scared, rebellious, grief stricken and filled with loathing.

   “Bloody Hell,” muttered Seamus in awe. Parvati trembled at the weapons, and Harry couldn’t blame her. Were they going into battle? Why was no one using their wands?

   He caught Draco’s eye beside him. It conveyed relief, eagerness and terror all at once. Harry pulled a small smile at him, his insides doing summersaults with adrenalin. Maybe it wasn’t over yet, maybe they still had a chance, and his thoughts turned to Sarah again. Hang on in there, he willed her. I’m coming for you, just hang on.

   Those still dressed in black were scrambling around on the plinths, regrouping, their voices calling out in anger as their comrades deserted them. Voldemort’s inner circle, Bellatrix, Barty and Peter, were backing away; only Lucius remained by Voldemort’s side, more out of shock Harry suspected rather than anything else.

   Voldemort himself looked venomous. Barely controlled fury bristled from his every fibre, red eyes blazing at Draco standing tall. “And _what,”_ he fumed, “exactly, is _this?”_

   “The end,” a clear voice rang from the back of the room, behind the cowering still-robed Death Eaters. Voldemort spun around. Harry squinted through the gloom, bodies fidgeting distractingly around him. The voice seemed familiar, but it wasn’t until his face was illuminated Harry knew for sure. Professor Snape.

   “Severus,” growled Voldemort. “Playing leader again I see? How pitiful.”

   He was in charge of _Freiheit?_ He was the one coming to his rescue? Harry couldn’t think of anyone he wanted to see less. As he threaded his way down through the auditorium, flanked by a dozen or so more plain clothed people, all carrying weapons of their own, Harry could see he was still the same hook-nosed, greasy teacher he’d always loathed. Same frayed robes, same disdainful expression and angry mouth. Did he hate the other Harry too? Did he make his life misery? He snuck a glance at Draco, who had always been his favourite. How did he feel about all this?

   Dumbledore had tried to convince Harry of Snape’s integrity many times before, but now faced with the prospect of trusting him with the fate of the wizarding world (not to mention his and his friends’ lives) he was stricken, feet wanting to flee but head making him stay. Draco’s cheeks were flushed, eyes bright. This was obviously who he’d been waiting for, he was staring intently at the potions master with relief. Maybe it would be okay.

   Snape and his companions walked down the last few steps. He stood at the front of Draco’s group, facing his former master, as the rest joined the throng. Harry realised there was probably nothing he could do about having his former potions teacher suddenly thrown into the equation, but he still edged closer to Hermione none the less. “You never knew when to quit, did you _My Lord.”_ Snape’s tone was mocking, which Harry thought was pretty brave under the circumstances.

   “You,” seethed Voldemort. “You all, seek to oppose me, challenge ME?”

   Hermione had pulled Sarah’s wand out, and at that moment Draco apparently noticed. “You can’t use that!” he hissed at her, snatching Harry’s attention away from Snape and Voldemort. The tension in the room was like the ropes on a suspension bridge; ready to break spectacularly at any second.

   “What?” uttered Hermione, eyes flicking to Harry. The five students were huddled together, Blaise glued to Draco’s other side as he tried to whisper hurriedly at them without being noticed by Voldemort, who was screaming at Snape now; they could only have seconds before someone attacked.

   “Magic won’t work in here,” said Draco desperately, and Harry’s insides plummeted. “Only for him,” he jerked his head over his shoulder at Voldemort. “Get the stakes I gave you.”

   The people around them were rallying, shouting, jostling. Hermione looked petrified. “They’re not vampires,” she stuttered.

   “Pretty sure,” snarled Parvati, a look on her face Harry had never seen before. “A stake in the heart will still kill them.” She and Seamus pulled out their stakes, but Seamus handed his to Hermione.

   “I’ve got me mitts,” he told her.

   “You got another sword?” Harry asked. He had only used Gryffindor’s sword against the Basilisk, but if everyone else had one, he wanted one too.

   Blaise Zabini handed him one from nowhere, similar to hers and Draco’s. “Thanks,” he said, and she nodded in return.

   A noise grabbed his attention, and Harry barely had time to register that Voldemort, spitting in rage, had reached the end of his patience. As he plunged his waxy arm into his robes, Harry grabbed Hermione and pulled her to the ground, the killing spell spinning out in an arch instantaneously.

   Snape was only just able to dive out of the way of the green light, but a curly haired boy with glasses behind him wasn’t so lucky. He could only have been a few years older than Harry, and the spell struck him square on the chest. He crumpled to the floor, dead, before he even knew what had hit him. Just like Cedric.

   There was a demented roar in the air as the two sides ran at each other. Madness, chaos, confusion, Harry didn’t know which way to turn. He had a hold of Hermione’s wrist, pulling her from the melee, when her scream made him drop it and fly both hands to the sword.

   “ _LOOK OUT!”_ On instinct he brought the weapon up in an arch, clanging it against one belonging to Walden McNair, Buckbeak’s would-be executioner.

   “You!” Harry shouted, pushing him back. McNair grinned, apparently pleased Harry Potter knew who he was. There was a sea of motion all around them, and Harry had lost sight of Hermione in it. He didn’t have time to dwell on it though, as McNair had his blade up again, slashing it over and over at Harry who kept stepping backwards, bringing his new sword up defensively when he could. He forced him off the plinth, into the shadows near the wall with the door Harry and the others had just come through.

   “Dark Lord wants you alive,” grinned McNair, flashing gold teeth. He may have been skinny, but his arms were strong on that sword. “He did not however, specify you had to be in one piece.” With a tremendous fling from his shoulders he wrenched the sword from Harry’s grasp, sending it clattering to the floor and Harry to the ground. Harry gasped and scrambled backwards until he hit the wall. Columns lined the edges of the amphitheatre, and now Harry was trapped between two of them, McNair blocking his way out. “Surely,” continued McNair as Harry’s eyes darted around for anything that could help. “You don’t need both your hands, do you?”

   Harry cried out as McNair heaved his sword up, aiming it down where Harry was cornered. On reflex Harry threw his arms in front of his face, jamming his eyes shut as the blow should have hit. Instead there was a resounding clang.

   Harry jerked his eyes open again. Draco was forcing McNair and his weapon backwards, his short sword already dripping sickeningly with blood that flicked off with every swing he took. The gloating look had disappeared right off McNair’s face, and with good reason. Harry couldn’t help but stare at Draco; despite his injured leg which was obviously still affecting him, his technique with the sword was astonishing. He parried and deflected in a way that was almost majestic, his face focused with determination. The weapons rang out as metal clashed on metal, Draco ducking away from any blows that came near him, flinching every time he limped on his bad leg but lunging forwards with his blade as if nothing was holding him back in the slightest.

   Hermione dropped to the floor behind him. “Are you okay?” she gasped. “I got pulled away...” Her voice trailed away as she too became mesmerised by Draco’s skill. He lunged; he’d lost his coat before starting the duel, and the lines of his muscles cut through the sleeves of his thin jumper. The two swords became suddenly locked, the hilts jammed against each other. The two of them tried to yank their own respective blade towards themselves, but the way their grips were placed meant neither could break free.

   McNair swiped at Draco’s face with his free hand, and Draco summed up all his previous dexterity and expertise by simply lurching away from his opponent, releasing both the swords, grabbing McNair’s shoulders and rocketing his good knee up into the Death Eater’s crotch with such a force that McNair actually left the ground.

   He landed with a strange squeaking noise, then crashed to the floor, clutching his manhood and wheezing, purple faced. “Sod off!” Draco shouted down to him, scooping up his sword and gripping onto his spear-wound which looked to be bleeding again through his jeans. His voice was barely audible over the din coming from the rest of the hall.

   They were concealed in the shadows, away from the main throng, but Blaise had obviously followed after Draco and now dropped down to join them behind the pillars. Harry helped Hermione onto her feet, and turned to face Draco as he held his fallen sword out for him to take back. “You alright?” he asked, concerned.

   Harry took the sword from him, his gaze scanning the carnage happening out in the light and he tried not to retch. “I’m not hurt if that’s what you mean.” The noise was unbearable, people screaming and shouting, weapons clanging and scraping.

   Blaise had confiscated McNair’s sword and tied his hands with his own belt. She stood and regarded the little group, then held out the spare sword for Hermione.

   Nausea rolled visibly over the other girl as she regarded the sword in trepidation. “I don’t know how to use that,” she whispered.

   Draco raised an eyebrow, half turning to make sure no one was leaping at them whilst they were distracted. “We could leave it lying around for someone else to find if you’d like?” Hermione took the sword and clutched it to her chest. Draco looked at her and Harry and took a deep breath, his face very pale. “I’m sorry,” he said hurriedly, “about what happened back there. I didn’t know if the hall was going to be empty or if they were going to be there like that, but I had to wait for Severus to give me a sign.”

   “It’s okay,” said Harry, just as quickly. He opened his mouth to continue but the words were swallowed by a gasp as a robed figure suddenly came hurtling out of the light towards them. He barely flinched away before Blaise pounced, sword arching through the air. Their attacker froze in a split second, then was nothing more than a blur as he scrambled away from the skinny girl. Harry almost thought he heard him whimper.

   Harry took a deep breath and shook his head, trying to remember what he’d just been about to say. The flare, behind Voldemort, that was it. “The sign,” he said to Draco, who didn’t seem at all concerned his friend had just jumped into battle. “It was that green light, wasn’t it?”

   Draco nodded, still clutching his leg. His faith in Blaise proved true a moment later as she snuck back into their shadow, blood dripping unnervingly from her sword.

   “You can’t fight any more,” she said pragmatically, eyeing up the increasing amount of blood staining Draco’s jeans.

   Draco looked between her, Harry and Hermione. “But-?” he started, but she cut him off.

   “You should stay here.” She flicked her sword to indicate where they had found their refuge. “With Granger, in the shadows.”

   Hermione’s eyebrows shot up. “I – I shouldn’t – how do you who I am?” she spluttered, still trembling with McNair’s blade clutched in her hands. Blaise wiped her own sword on her leg and blinked large hazel eyes.

   “You had braces in your case-study photo,” she said simply. Hermione looked between the boys. Harry couldn’t help but think her hiding was a very good idea, especially if Draco was there to protect her.

   “But,” said Hermione quietly. “I don’t want to be a coward.”

   “You’re _not_ a coward,” snapped Harry and Draco simultaneously. They even emphasised the word ‘not’ in the same way.

   “You wouldn’t have made it this far if you were,” murmured Blaise, eyes back on the fight. She stood the tallest in the group with Draco slumping on his leg, her muscles were taught, ready to spring back into action again.

   Draco finally gave in and almost fell from the pain in his injury, but Harry was there propping him up before he had chance to really go anywhere. “How about,” said Draco wearily to Hermione. “We look after each other?” He waved his sword half heartedly at her. “That way I’ll feel more manly.”

   Blaise scoffed. “Drama queen.”

   “Princess Rah,” he retorted without pause, a smile on his bloodless lips.

   “Okay,” said Harry, aware that the minutes were ticking by. “Is everyone okay with that?” They all nodded.

   “Good,” said Blaise. She hugged Draco with one arm then turned back towards the thinning battle. Harry guessed people were naturally moving their skirmishes outwards, giving themselves room. There was still a heaving mass of bodies thrashing about though, so Draco and Hermione didn’t have to worry just yet about people getting bored and going exploring.

   “What are you going to do?” said Draco, just as Blaise reached the threshold. She only half turned her face to him in response.

   “Someone has to make sure your father doesn’t get in any more trouble than he already is.” And with that she was gone. Draco’s weight sagged against Harry.

   “Yeah,” he said listlessly. “I guess so.”

   Harry and Hermione helped him sit to the floor, where Hermione used a strip from her school shirt to make a tourniquet for Draco’s leg. The spell Seamus had performed was wearing off and Draco’s was not only bleeding profusely but looked to be in a considerable amount of pain.

   _Seamus._ Harry was ashamed to say he’d completely forgotten about the other two in the past few minutes.

   “Did you see what happened to Seamus and Parvati?” he asked in a rush as the tourniquet took effect.

   Draco actually managed half a smile. “They latched onto a group with cricket bats,” he said. “That Finnigan has a mean left hook.” Harry nodded as he crouched. Hermione sitting next to Draco, their backs to the wall, tucked in as best they could by the pillar closest to the stage so as to be best concealed.

   Draco looked up at Harry. “You’re going after your sister, aren’t you?” Harry bit his lip, and nodded. That was exactly what he was going to do. “You know he’ll be looking for you.

   Harry didn’t have to ask who he meant.

   “I know, that’s why I have to go. He’ll use her against me if he can.” Draco nodded; he knew all too well how that worked.

   “Here,” said Hermione hastily, pulling out Sarah’s wand from her pocket. “You need to give it back to her.” Harry smiled gratefully at her as he took it.

   “Thanks,” he said. It didn’t seem enough.

   Draco pointed into the shadows, away from the plinth and the auditorium. “Down there’s the rest of the complex,” he said. “There’s various...rooms, Sarah’s probably in one of them.” Harry didn’t want to know what kind of rooms they were.

   “Look after each other,” he said, feeling his throat tightening.

   “Look after yourself,” said Draco.

   “Good luck,” added Hermione. And before he could change his mind, Harry stood up, spinning on his heels and raced out of the amphitheatre.

   He didn’t look around to see if anyone was watching.

 

***

 

   Harry was in a stone corridor, and once he was completely out of the auditorium fiery torches burst into life along the walls. He put Sarah’s wand into his other pocket as he ran, so as not to get it confused with his own. He gripped onto his sword and tried not to think about how much he’d rather have his wand, his wand that could do so much in his hand, unlike the sword which he was fearing could do very little at all.

   His eyes and ears were pricked, but even so he only just heard the person sneaking up on him. Without thinking he spun around, heaving the sword up as he did. The blade sliced into the woman’s right arm, Harry felt it hit the bone, causing her to scream and drop the dagger she was holding to the ground. It was Bellatrix, the woman from Dumbledore’s pensive. She seized her injury as blood gushed from the wound, covering her dangling arm and both her hands, splashing down her lacy black dress. She gasped and staggered, wide eyes on Harry as she hit the stone wall and steadied herself. “Potter,” she growled, eyes narrowing as she shook, adrenalin running through her shock-ridden body.

   She fumbled forward, clumsily grabbing the dagger in her left hand. Harry backed up a few steps, holding his sword out warningly. It was making his arms ache with effort and he hoped she couldn’t see how much they were trembling.

   “You’re coming with me,” spat Bellatrix, her face extraordinarily pale against her dress and mass of curly black hair.

   “Yeah,” said Harry, edging backwards again. “I don’t think so.”

   Bellatrix cackled. “You’re only here because he wanted you here!” she shrieked, the torch light dancing manically in her eyes. “How do you think you got through the forest? Where did you think all the ghouls and goblins went, hmm?”

   “I’m here for my sister,” said Harry resolutely, ignoring her taunts. He had thought they’d been lucky not to meet anything most unpleasant than the _Ungezähmts_ as they’d traipsed through the woods, but it didn’t matter how they got here, only that they had.

   “Little baby Potter,” sang Bellatrix, all the colour gone from her lips. She was leaving quite a substantial trail of blood on the floor as she shuffled towards Harry, her left hand gripped shakily around the dagger still. “Quite the little firecracker, put up such a fight.”

   “If you’ve hurt her!” cried Harry, unable to stop himself rising to the bait, but it only made Bellatrix laugh more.

   “He wants you to go to her,” she whispered. “He’s got her all wrapped up for you, My Lord.” Her eyes shone with reverence beneath fluttering eyelids at the mention of Voldemort. “He has such things, such great things planned for you.”

   “Oh give it up!” snapped Harry, exhaustion frying his patience for this woman and what was clearly an unhealthy obsession with her master. “I’m not doing anything he says.”

   Bellatrix cackled again. “You think you’ve got a choice?” she screeched. “He has your sister!”

   It was Harry’s turn to growl. “Not for long.”

   Bellatrix swayed, from blood loss or giddiness Harry really wasn’t sure. “You’re feistier than I thought you would be, Potter,” she rasped. “The way I heard it, you were all soft and squishy, hiding behind mummy’s skirts.” She eyed up his sword, the metal glinting in the torchlight. “I heard you were good at hiding.”

   Harry actually curled his lip in distain at the woman jabbering in front of him. “I’ve had enough of this,” he said. What he wanted to do was take a swing at her, but the blade weighed a ton in his arms and he’d been so clumsy before with he balked at the last second. Instead he took another few steps away, back down the corridor. They had passed several doors already, all of the very much shut, and Harry was starting to panic just how many places Sarah could be. This woman was wasting his time.

   “You’ve had enough?” asked Bellatrix, smirking. “Well so have I, so I guess you’d better just do what I say.”

   She leapt at him, dagger flailing. Harry really had to swipe the sword; she dodged the blade at the last moment but the weight of the weapon carried Harry on his trajectory. Instead he smashed into one of the torch brackets, dislodging it from the wall, making the torch fall. Right onto Bellatrix.

   _WOOMPH!_ Her dress lit up like it was drenched in oil, flames engulfing her body almost before she had time to scream. Harry jumped back in horror as she howled. His hand automatically grabbed his wand, the spell to douse the fire dying on his lips as he remembered that magic didn’t work for anyone in here. Apart from Voldemort.

   Bellatrix stopped screaming and flailing in a matter of moments, the gut-wrenching smell of burnt flesh flooding the stone corridor. Harry finally lost the battle he’d been having with his stomach the entire evening and retched foul tasting lumps of chocolate and popcorn onto the floor.

   Bellatrix’s body had fallen to the ground and was smouldering with unnatural intensity. Harry wiped his mouth and blinked the smoke from his eyes, waving it through the air, staring shell-shocked at her corpse. He knew that she had wanted to hurt him, maybe even kill him, and he had been prepared to do the same. But he hadn’t meant to do this.

   Pulling his wits together he checked the corridor was clear both ways, before dropping the sword and yanking off his coat and rucksack. He’d been so bone cold out in the forest and now he was dripping with sweat. He dropped them to the floor, a few meters from the now smouldering form of what used to be Bellatrix, then picked up his sword once more and headed down the corridor at a jog. He tried a few of the doors he went past, but they were all locked tight, and without cause to think Sarah was behind any of them for sure he had no choice but to carry on running.

   It wasn’t long before he came to a T junction, and he stood helplessly looking from left to right, absolutely no idea which way he should go. It seemed though, somewhere in the universe there was someone on his side, because he was there no more than thirty seconds before a screaming voice echoed from somewhere to his right.

   _“HARRY!”_ it called, clear as day even though it was muffled. _“HARRY IT’S A TRAP!”_ Harry’s insides contracted. He’d only known her a day but there was no doubt in his mind that voice had belonged to Sarah.

   He broke into a full sprint, as fast as his legs would carry him, ignoring Sarah’s warning. He’d known it was going to be a trap, he would have been stupid to think otherwise. All that concerned him now was getting to her before something terrible happened.

   He hurtled around the corner and up a short flights of stairs. Before he knew it he’d reached a door, open ajar, with someone definitely moving inside it. Not even pausing to think, Harry threw his whole weight onto the heavy oak, crashing it open to the sound of rusty hinges.

   He was in a round room, not that big, the walls and floor made of the same grey stone as before. In the centre stood an ancient looking wooden table, round again, with snakes carved into the legs, the Dark Mark emblazoned on the top.

   Peter Pettigrew was wrestling with a dishevelled looking Sarah on the ground, trying to hold her head still long enough to tie the cloth gag he had jammed into her mouth. Her hands and feet were bound, and there was blood trickling from what looked like a fresh cut on her lip. She was dirty, her face tear-stained, and her long black hair was pulled out at all angles.

   Wormtail dropped the cloth in shock at the sight of Harry, springing guiltily away from his sister. Fury rose like a wave of lava through Harry. “Get. Back,” he managed to bark through his teeth.

   “Harry!” cried Sarah in panic. “You’ve got to run! He wanted you to try and rescue me!”

   Harry took a step forward, but suddenly he was flung into the side of the room in a flash of blue light. His head hit the wall with a sickening crack and he folded to the ground like a rag doll, losing the sword from his grip. His vision swam underneath his eyelids, disorienting him, and he dug his nails into the cool flagstones that lined the floor.

   “Harry Potter,” sighed that snakelike voice as the wooden door slammed shut again on rusty hinges. “You and Master Malfoy have caused quite a _fuss_ haven’t you?”

   Harry forced his eyes open and grappled for the sword. Voldemort looked amused as he scrambled to his feet. “His name is Draco,” Harry snapped, holding the blade in front of him. His eyes flicked to Sarah, who had scooched back into the other side of the room, legs curled defensively in front of her body, eyes flicking between Harry and Voldemort. Wormtail cowered away from his master, pressing himself into the wall just like Sarah in an unsuccessful attempt to disappear.

   Voldemort seemed to ignore what Harry had said about Draco, and gave him a little smile. “There has been quite a chain of events that has brought you here tonight,” said the dark wizard, his gaze sweeping lazily over towards Sarah. “I think fate was as eager for us to meet as I have been.”

   “You have no idea what fate’s been up to today,” said Harry bitterly, eyes unwavering from Voldemort standing perfectly at ease in his long black robes. He began pacing leisurely, and it was then Harry realised with a jolt there was another object in the room: a mirror. But not just any mirror, Harry knew this one all too well.

   It was the Mirror or Erised. Voldemort followed his line of sight and came to a halt near it. “You like my mirror?” he asked Harry, who’s head was swimming ever so slightly. What on Earth was that doing there? The last time he’d seen it-

   “So you have seen it before?” said Voldemort, pleased. Harry almost dropped the sword. Hagrid had told him on more than one occasion how Voldemort had been able to read minds, but he hadn’t really believed it to be true. How much could he see?

   Voldemort was staring at him with hungry, curious eyes. They darted between him and his sister briefly; it was like Wormtail wasn’t even in the room. “Oh, I can see a great deal, Harry Potter,” he whispered, almost delighted. “Yes, I see now, I see what they meant.”

   Harry readjusted his grip on the sword, his hands clammy and his neck now sticky with blood from where his head had smashed into the wall. “I know you want to kill me,” croaked Harry, his voice shaky. “Just let Sarah go, it’s got nothing to do with her.”

   “Oh I don’t think so,” chuckled Voldemort softly, as if we were teaching Harry a class rather than discussing his death. “That was before. But now, now I discover you have other uses to me, and I think our relationship is a little more complex than a simple mission to annihilate one another.”

   “Speak for yourself,” spat Harry. He couldn’t decide if he should be edging towards Sarah or the mirror. An inkling of what was going on was forming in his head, but he shook it away until he knew for sure.

   “You know of my duel with Dumbledore at the school, I know you do,” said Voldemort eagerly. “My health had been irrevocably damaged since, and I have been seeking a cure with only limited success.” His long, white hand indicated the mirror. “My seers led me to the Mirror of Erised, and then mere weeks ago they led me to you. You, who I have done all in my power to eliminate to prevent my own demise, now seem to be the one with the key to my survival.”

   “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Harry as resolutely as he could muster.

   “I think you do,” said Voldemort, red eyes blazing. “The time is now, we must seize it, seize our destinies, together!” Harry could see now how stooped he was compared to his new born self in the graveyard last summer, how his face and hands were traced with lines beyond his years, how his weight rested almost solely on one leg only. He really wasn’t well.

   Good. Anything to give Harry an advantage. “Well I’m not going to help you,” he said aloud. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”  

   Voldemort’s eyes searched him. “What’s so special about you now Harry,” he whispered, hands gripping into the back of one of the chairs surrounding the round table. “You do seem different, of that I’m certain.”

   And then it hit Harry. What had Hermione been saying all along? About how he was meant to be here, how it was his destiny?

   The other Harry wouldn’t know how to get the Philosopher’s Stone from the mirror to restore Voldemort’s health. But he himself already retrieved it once before.

   Instantly Harry cursed himself for letting his thought’s betray him. Voldemort’s face lit up in an almost childlike gesture. “Get me the stone Harry Potter,” he purred. “Get me the Philosopher’s Stone.”

   Harry felt the panic rise in him. “No,” he breathed, practically tripping over his feet as he tried to get over to Sarah and away from the mirror, but Voldemort’s wand was on him at an arm’s stretch away from his little sister.

     _“Imperio!”_ he cried, hitting Harry square on the chest. In an instant his whole body went slack, his sword clattering to the ground. There was nothing at all in his head and it was wonderful, blissful even. He heard a laugh, it made him feel happy.

   Walk towards the mirror, the laughing voice drifted pleasantly through his head. Fetch me the stone.

   Okay, thought Harry, I can do that. He turned dreamily and took a step towards the mirror. Another voice was screaming his name, but Harry paid it no attention, barely noticing when it ceased abruptly. He was going towards the mirror.

   No! cried another voice that sounded very much like his own. Stop walking, don’t do it!

   Why would I do that? thought Harry dismissively. I want to get the stone out.

   No you don’t, argued the voice that sounded like his. You have to fight it!

   Harry sighed. No I don’t, he thought, taking another step. He wasn’t far now.

   Fight it Harry! Fight it!

   Harry felt his foot falter. Why should he fight it?

   The other Harry voice sounded elated at his sudden moment of doubt. He’s the enemy! it called. You can’t help him!

   The laughing voice from before had stopped laughing. Get me the stone, it growled menacingly.

   Actually, thought Harry, I don’t know if I want to do that. His feet had definitely stopped walking now.

   Go to the mirror!

   Think of Sarah, yelled the other Harry voice. Think of Draco, Hermione!

   Harry saw the mirror and blinked. GET ME THE STONE! bellowed Voldemort, but Harry was thinking of what he’d seen when he’d really looked in the mirror all those Christmases ago. It had been his parents. His family. And he wasn’t going to let them down.

   With a roar he wrenched himself from Voldemort’s spell, stumbling forward over his feet and righting himself on a chair. Voldemort cried out in shock at his curse being broken so easily. Harry flung himself upright. “There’s quite a few things different about me, _actually_ ,” he cried, and darted for his sword, determinedly not looking in the mirror; he didn’t want to retrieve the Philosopher’s Stone until absolutely necessary.

   Voldemort was not to be deterred though. _“I will have obedience,”_ he screeched, _“Crucio!”_

   Harry’s body felt like it lit up just as Bellatrix’s had done. Burning pain flared over every inch of his skin, crippling him, sending him tumbling to the ground. He screamed, and he was pretty sure Sarah was screaming again too. He was blind with agony.

   “I-” gasped Voldemort. “You will-” But the strain of performing two unforgivable curses one after the other was obviously rinsing through his already exhausted body, and after a few more unbearable moments the pain vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

   With a burst of renewed energy, Harry heaved his aching body off the floor and ran at the debilitated Voldemort, smacking him to the ground. Sarah bellowed in appreciation.

   Voldemort yelled furiously and tried to push Harry off him. But Harry knew what to do. Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, he grabbed onto Voldemort’s face.

   Pain exploded in his forehead, just as it had done when he was a child and Voldemort had worn Professor Quirrell’s face instead of his own. It was threatening to split his whole head open, but it was working; Voldemort was weakening considerably. Tears streamed down Harry’s face as the dark wizard screamed in pain. _Just a bit more_ , he wiled himself.

   He didn’t have to last any longer though. Wormtail grabbed Harry by the shoulders and hauled him off. Harry jerked his head and arched his back in response. Still reeling with pain, Harry grabbed Wormtail and rolled him onto the floor with him; they both hit the wall with a crack and crumpled.

   Harry staggered to his feet again, and realised the previous crack had been some sort of bone breaking. He gasped as hot lightening seared through his left arm, and he cradled it as best he could with his good one. Voldemort tried also to rise to his feet, but failed. He still managed to grin at Harry though, teeth now the same colour as his eyes from the blood he was coughing up. A look of triumph was on his face. _“Seize him!”_ he hissed, but nobody else other than Harry understood him.

   The snakes carved around the wooden table legs began uncoiling themselves and slithered rapidly towards Harry. _“Bring him to me!”_ yelled Voldemort.

   But Harry had other ideas. He stumbled backwards, clutching his arm, and yelled, _“Stop!” –_ speaking in Parseltongue, just like Voldemort had done. The wooden serpents halted immediately in their tracks. Wormtail made to get up, do what the snakes had failed to do perhaps. But Sarah, unnoticed, had shifted herself over to where he and her brother had landed, and chose now to aim a well timed kick at his knees.

   “Ah!” he grunted as he toppled over his own feet, crashing to the ground.

   _“Bind him,”_ commanded Harry angrily, pointing at Wormtail with his good arm. The snakes moved to do as they were told.

   Voldemort’s expression was one of incredulous fury. He stood up with difficulty. _“What is the meaning of this!”_ he demanded, his tongue reverting back to English.

   Harry glowered at him, the pain pulsating through his arm, sharpening his senses. “Me,” he breathed. “I’m the meaning of it. I told you I was different.” Hermione had been right. The other Harry had never been trained to fight off the Impervious Curse, had never had the ability to speak Parseltongue or the sacrifice of his mother imprinted on him as a baby. He was _meant_ to be here, and the knowledge of it was as powerful as a ember in a powder keg.

   Voldemort did not let him revel in his moment. “If you will not help me willingly,” he spat, blood dripping from his chin. “I will _make_ you!” It only took Harry less than a second to work out his intention as he drew back his wand and fired at little Sarah Potter, balled up on the floor. _“Avada Kedavra!”_ he screamed, the killing curse flying at Harry’s sister.

   Forgetting that magic didn’t work, thinking only of diving in front of Sarah, Harry pulled his own wand out with his good arm and fired back at Voldemort.

_“Expelliarmus!”_

   The spell worked.

   Harry wasn’t sure who was more stunned, himself or Voldemort. “Wha-” spluttered the dark wizard as red light met green in a golden shower of sparks. The two connected in a line as strong as iron, locking their hands onto their wands. Just as it had done in the graveyard. Priori Incantatem.

   Sarah gave a startled cry as the light splintered and formed a shining cage around the two wizards, the comforting phoenix song filling the air. Harry’s right arm shook so much it was jarring the broken left one, but he resisted gripping his wand with both hands as Voldemort was now doing.

   _“What is this?”_ he demanded, fear and fury emanating from him equally. “Only my wand will work here, ONLY MINE!”

   Harry grunted a laugh. “My wand’s got the same core as yours, they won’t destroy each other.” And, he added mentally, that’s probably why it’s working when no one else’s will. He cursed himself for not trying to use it earlier.

   “No they don’t!” shrieked Voldemort, visibly straining to keep the bead of light sliding up and down the line of the spells from reaching his wand. It wasn’t far off though, and Harry knew what would happen if it did. “Mine is unique!”

   It really is my old wand, thought Harry, remembering how he’d recognised it so easily back at Godric’s Hollow. He said nothing though, focusing only on moving the bead of light away from him, closer and closer...

   Voldemort’s wand shuddered violently, making him cringe and moan. “You will not defeat me boy!” he yelled, more than a hint of panic in his words.

   Harry watched, watched not breathing, not blinking, eyes only on the bead. “I already have,” he whispered weakly.

   There was an tumultuous explosion as the bead finally reached the tip of the wand. The green light threw Harry clean off his feet, sending him sailing for a third time into the cold stone wall and throwing his burning stick of a wand from his hand. Sarah rolled under the table for protection, Wormtail whimpered and squeezed his eyes shut as Harry landed painfully beside him.

   An unearthly cry filled the air. The golden cage shattered, raining fragments down on the small room and ending the phoenix’s song. Still the wailing went on, the green light was shinning blindingly from an unknown source, making it impossible for Harry to see anything at all. He forced himself to sit up against the wall, hand searching for his wand, and squinted at where Voldemort had landed after being thrown against the opposite wall. He could make out the shadowy outline of a figure, hands pressed to his ears, trying to make the noise stop. Harry didn’t know what to do, there was no escape – _where was his wand_ – he had to get him and Sarah out of there before, before…

   But he was too late.

   The Dark Lord raised his wand with a shaking hand, pointed it at Harry, a demented laugh on his lips. _“You_ _will not defeat me!”_ he screamed. _“AVADA KEDAVRA!”_

   Harry didn’t even have time to think. He flung his arms in front of his face, his strangled cry mixing with Sarah’s scream. The spell, the one that had killed his parents, hit him like a tidal wave, choking him, crushing him. He burned, he folded in despair, he was awash with death.

   But he did not die.

   Instead, a blinding pain sliced into his forehead, and the screaming changed from his voice, to Voldemort’s. A booming noise resounded through the room, the stonework shook, surely to come down upon them. Harry crawled, as if through treacle, the curse still having a grasp on him, under the table with Sarah. There was a deafening, thundering noise as huge chunks of the walls and the ceiling came crashing down around them.

   And then everything was black and silent.

 

***

 

   “Harry?”

   He swam through the darkness, searching for something to grip onto as consciousness came crawling back to him. Was he dead? He hoped not, he didn’t feel very dead, but then having never died before how could he really be sure?

   “Harry?” came the voice again, a man’s voice, one Harry thought he recognised. “Harry old chap, come on, wake up.”

   He tried to open his eyes, a handsome but worried face greeting him as the man in the tailcoat peered down at him. “Wha-?”

   “You’re nearly there,” said the man encouragingly. “If you just wake up, just hang in a little longer.”

   Harry blinked and the man was gone, so he let his eyes close once more. A different voice called his name though, this one belonging to a girl. “H-harry?” The voice was shaking, desperate. He reached for it. Slowly, very slowly, the feeling came back into his limbs, the pain of his broken arm, the cold of the stone floor on his skin. His head was killing him, and he could feel warm blood oozing down his face, pooling in his ear.

   “Harry!” Something punched into his arm, causing him to jerk in on himself, firing shockwaves of pain through the break in his other arm. He grunted and prised his stinging eyes open.

   Sarah was sitting, still bound, trembling and trying not to cry. She gasped back a dry sob as Harry blinked and attempted to sit. “I thought you were dead!” she shrieked accusingly, rubbing her cheeks with the back of one of her trembling hands. She was ashen white, with purple-black smudges blotted under her eyes and on her jaw where she’d been struck.

   “Where is he,” mumbled Harry, dry tongue catching against his teeth. Sarah stopped sniffing and became very still.

   “I don’t know,” she whispered, curling her limbs into her chest. “There was that spell, all the green light, you passed out, and he...he just...” She steadied herself with a deep breath. “I think he vanished.”   Harry’s hand flew to his head, it came away sticky with blood. “You’ve got a cut,” Sarah said numbly, as if confirming something very trivial. “It’s like a zig zag.”

   “Like a lightning bolt?” asked Harry in disbelief. She nodded, and his vision swam so vigorously he had to throw his bloody hand to the floor to steady himself. “I’ve done it again,” he whispered in disbelief. He stared out through the gently falling dust at the rubble, looking for proof, but there was nothing to be seen which gave him all the proof he needed.

   But _how?_ His mother had thrown herself in front of his cot, refusing to save herself, dying rather than give up her son. That was what saved him before, all those years ago. But then he thought of how he had grabbed Quirrell’s face to protect the Philosopher’s Stone, and how he’d had exactly the same effect on Voldemort just moments ago.

   This may not have been his body, but somehow Lily Potter’s sacrifice was still with him.

   And had now saved two Potter children.

   He could see Sarah staring at him as he spotted Wormtail lying on the floor, eyes closed, bleeding from several superficial wounds. He’d been knocked unconscious too it seemed, but the wooden snakes were still keeping him prisoner.

   “Done what?” asked Sarah, pulling at her binds. Harry looked about for his wand from where he’d dropped it, but it was nowhere in sight. He tried one-handedly to undo her ropes but they weren’t budging.

   “I think he’s dead,” said Harry, concentrating on the twine and not the pain in his arm. “You-Know-Who, he’s gone.”

   “But,” said Sarah, going slack as she stared at her brother, apparently completely forgetting about the rope that held her. “He can’t be.”

   “Trust me,” he said, and even managed a wink. She frowned, unconvinced, and looked down at his attempts.

   “You need a wand,” she said bluntly, and Harry sighed. She was right of course, the rope was magically stuck fast, so with quite a lot of effort he rolled on to his side and awkwardly got out from under the table, cradling his bad arm.

   “You can’t just say ‘trust me’,” said Sarah from under the furniture as he began picking through the rubble where he’d last hit the wall. “You’re talking about You-Know-Who, he’s not going to just disappear.”

   Harry tried to shift quite a large chunk of the wall aside. “Yes he is, I promise I know what I’m talking about – ah!” He cried out as he spotted a tip of wood, and yanked it free, immensely relieved it was still in one piece. Smiling he ducked back under the table and wiggled it at her. She gasped in delight and held out her hands to be untied. Harry flicked his wrist making all the rope drop to the ground, and Sarah began massaging life back into her joints. “Episkey,” he said, and all her little cuts disappeared in an instant.

   “It’s a shame I didn’t have my wand on me,” she said. “I guess it wouldn’t have done any good anyway, but-” She stopped as Harry groaned and smacked his bleeding forehead, then winced at the sting.

   “I forgot something,” he said sheepishly. Awkwardly, his good hand fished into his other jeans pocket and pulled out Sarah’s wand, the one Hermione had been guarding. She looked almost tearful, then hungrily grabbed it from his fingers as soon as he offered it to her.

   “Oh thank you thank you thank you,” she beamed.

   “Awesome,” he groaned, desperately hanging onto what little energy he had left. “Right,” he managed slowly. “Let’s get out from underneath this table.”

   “Come on though,” pressed Sarah, nervously helping him to stand. “What do you mean ‘he’s gone’?”

   “I think we should get moving,” he said, dodging the question. “Um, _could you bring him too?”_ he asked the wooden snakes in Parseltongue, who obediently began slithering over the floor, Pettigrew still firmly unconscious and held as their prisoner.

   “And that!” cried Sarah, stumbling over piles of rocks. “What the Hell is that coming from your mouth?”

   “I’m just...” said Harry weakly. “Uh...talking with the snakes.”

   “How?” demanded Sarah, halting just before the door and folding her arms. Little puffs of dust escaped from her bedraggled hair every time she moved. “Everyone knows that’s what _he_ does, how can you possibly do it? And why-?” Her voice caught, and he saw her swallow to get it back under control. “Why didn’t the killing curse work – _twice?”_

   “Sarah,” began Harry gently. He leant against the handle on the wooden door. “There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me right now. I’ll do my best to explain later I promise, but right now there’s a lot of trouble going on out there and we have to get back and help.”

   “Trouble?” Harry nodded, and explained as panic-free as he could that a full on battle had broken out in the auditorium. Sarah went even more white, which Harry didn’t think was possible. “Alright,” she said. “Let’s go.” Harry led the way, his thumb looped into his belt in a pitiful attempt to try and support his broken arm. He needed a spell to mend the break but he couldn’t think of it. He’d pocketed his wand and held the sword Baize had given him in front of him again. It weighed a ton.

   They passed Bellatrix’s body and the sounds of struggle were ringing back up the corridor again. Harry tried to get Sarah not to look but she seemed particularly glad Mrs Lestrange had met a sticky end, and peered over her shoulder as he steered her past.

   “There might be some awful things in here,” Harry said to her as they neared, a sickening feeling rising in his stomach. “So if I tell you to close your eyes and hold onto me, you’ve got to do it, okay?”

   Sarah nodded and raised her wand. Harry decided not to remind her magic wouldn’t work down here; having failed to get her another weapon, he might as well let her feel a little bit protected.

   They crept back into the shadows of the Hall, the full horror of the skirmish still raging on in the light. “Harry!” came the whispered cry of Hermione as they approached. Sarah gripped Harry’s sleeve as Hermione dashed over to them, Draco hauling himself of the floor in response.

   “It’s okay,” Harry assured his sister. “These are my friends, they helped get-” But they’d strayed too close to the light, or someone had heard their voices over the din, because a hooded figure soared towards them, a fierce looking mace swinging from their hands.

   Sarah screamed, and before Harry could stop her her wand was over her head and the spell was escaping her mouth. _“Expelliarmus!”_

   The red light hit him square in the chest and he crumpled to the ground. Harry froze in shock, as did Hermione. And half a dozen other witches and wizards around them. “We can use magic!” hollered a plain clothed witch from _Freiheit,_ dropping her cricket bat and firing off several stunning spells before anyone else could react. Then suddenly there was magic everywhere, stunning spells and defensive spells and the terrifying killing spells coming from the Death Eaters.  

   “Stay back!” cried Harry as the four of them melted once more into the shadows, immensely relieved to throw away his sword and pull out his wand again.

   Even as he did this though, Harry could see many choose to keep fighting with their weapons, blood flying as people were impaled and sliced. Harry attempted to keep Sarah from seeing, but even as his gaze swept across the scene before them he caught an older Death Eater driving his blade into the gut of a young boy, seconds before being blasted from afar by a jet of blue light.

   It was as if Harry lost all sensation in his lungs, unable to find them or the air he should be pulling into them. The boy stared down at his belly, almost confused, and touched the blood that was pumping from his wound. Sarah latched onto Harry’s arm, as if she wasn’t able to stand alone any more, and someone, somewhere, was screaming.

   Harry tilted his head, trying to right the world. Half a dozen more fighters dashed past between him and the boy, aiming spells, shouting out, dodging blades and curses. Harry was still searching for his lungs.

   Bodies littered the floor. It was impossible to tell who was stunned and who was dead or dying. People were fleeing, some even hurtling past Harry and his friends, but they ignored Harry and Harry barely registered them.

   He was watching the boy – the injured boy as he sunk to his knees, very slowly, as if through water. He looked up, his eyes not searching but focused. Expectant. They looked directly at Harry.

   He managed half a smile, then keeled over, crashing to the bloody ground.

   And Harry was running, into the light, as if all Hell were chasing after him, oblivious to the pain in his arm or the curses flying above his head. He was running as if his life depended on it. Because he knew that boy.

   That boy was Seamus.

 

***

 

   _“Seamus!”_ screamed Harry, running full pelt towards him, Sarah matching his pace. A member of _Freiheit_ darted across them, unaware of blocking their path, but Harry and his sister just jumped round them, barely noticing themselves. Someone deflected a spell above his head as he tumbled to the ground, scooping Seamus up with his good arm.

   “Harry,” he whispered, still smiling. “Sarah.”

   “Hold on,” cried Harry as Hermione and Draco skidded to a halt beside the Potters. Draco was firing spell after spell to keep people away from them. “We have to get him out of here!” Harry called to him. Draco looked back the way they’d just run; it was now swarming with people duelling. And dying.

   “Outside,” barked Draco, indicating one of the flights of stairs behind where Harry sat, clutching Seamus as he convulsed and coughed up blood. Harry tried to use his broken arm to shift Seamus’ dead weight, but the second he applied any pressure to it the pain flashed so fast and bright through his body he dropped him.

   “My arm-” he moaned, helplessly. Hermione dove down and looped her own arm underneath Seamus’ back.

   “You can cover us,” she gasped. In seconds, Draco was at her side, and Sarah was grappling for Seamus’ legs as Harry took over deflecting any unwanted attention. But Sarah was too small, Seamus’ legs were too long and too heavy for her to get purchase on. Harry reached over to help, but as his hand reached out Parvati Patil threw herself in his place.

   _“Seamus!”_ she screamed.

   “Go!” shouted Draco, and they scrambled as fast as they could up the stone steps, away from the fight. Harry might have been tired but the adrenaline flying through his body had sharpened his senses, was pumping him full of energy and guiding his wand with frightening accuracy. Seamus was crying out in pain as the four students pushed and pulled his broken body in their attempt to get him to safety.

   “What happened!” sobbed Parvati. “Seamus, Seamus can you hear me? You’ll be alright!”

   They reached the top of the auditorium, back in the shadows where Snape had appeared from as _Freiheit_ hadunveiled itself. “The door,” grunted Draco, looking past Seamus’ feet to a big oak set of double doors, similar to the one in the room Harry and Sarah had just been. Harry ran forward and heaved it open, wand between his teeth, revealing a marbled entrance hallway. They stumbled through, an awkward set of limbs, panic and sweat, running up a flight of grand looking stairs. Harry slammed into a second set of doors, bringing them out into the night. They kept running until they could go no further, collapsing onto the forest floor, the drizzle from before now a pouring rain.

   “Heal him!” Parvati practically screamed, and only now did Harry see how bloodied she was, how her lip was split and her clothes torn. He looked at Draco. They were both stripped down to jumpers, coats discarded. Along with Harry’s rucksack and medical supplies.

   “I’ll get help,” said Draco, and he spun, racing back across the forest floor on his injured leg, through the doors set into the rock face.

   “Seamus,” said Harry, reaching for the hand closest to him. Parvati was gripping the other one, cries racking from her chest. Their breath rose in curls of smoke through the rain and Harry couldn’t help but to begin shivering violently with the absence of his coat.

   “You’ll be alright,” Parvati was stuttering. “You’ll be alright.”

   Hermione was next to Harry. Sarah stood above them all. “Harry made You-Know-Who disappear,” she said to no one in particular.

   At this Seamus’ eyes fluttered open, and he tried to speak but it caught in his lungs and he began coughing up more blood. “Don’t talk!” pleaded Parvati, but Seamus ignored her.

   “What?” he spluttered. “What did you say?”

   Harry looked at the others. Sarah was blank, staring somewhere above Parvati’s head, Parvati was paying attention only to Seamus. But Seamus and Hermione were fixated on him, disbelief and wonder in their eyes. “How?” breathed Hermione.

Harry caught her eye. “Same as before,” he said quietly, then leant into Seamus. “So you’ve got nothing to worry about,” he said, squeezing his hand. “Parvati’s right, we’ll get help and you’ll be fine.”

   Almost as if on cue, pounding footsteps made them all jump and look round. Draco was running, his leg still bleeding through his jeans, followed by Blaise Zabini and Severus Snape. Parvati snatched up Seamus’ hand in both of her own and brought it to her chest. “Help him!” she cried.

   Severus dropped to his knees and shooed Harry and Hermione out of the way. He didn’t seem to have scratch on him, unlike Blaise who was bruised, scratched and panting. Her jeans were torn, and blood was cascading from a slice across her left cheek, mixing with the rainwater. Her left wrist was dark blue and twice its normal size. She was completely oblivious to it all though, bright eyes focused intently on Snape and the boy in his care on the cold, wet ground.

   Draco stood by her, and only looked mildly surprised as his little ball of sunshine came flying from the foliage and took its place by his head. It bobbed fretfully as everyone held their breath.

   Severus pulled gently at Seamus’ clothes, causing him to flinch and moan. Come on, thought Harry desperately, come on Snape.

   But his motions froze as soon as he caught sight of the wound. He leant in even further, peering at the torn skin. Harry didn’t want to look, it was so unnatural, so wrong, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away. Severus looked up at Blaise, then Draco, then back to Blaise. To the cut on Blaise’s cheek.

   Then shook his head.

   “What does that mean?” stammered Parvati, eyes huge as in one fluid motion Severus rose to his feet and sprinted back into the auditorium.

   “GET BACK HERE!” shouted Harry, furious.

_“What does that mean!”_ screamed Parvati after him, but Draco dropped to the ground beside her, taking hold of her shoulder and looking her directly in the eye.

   “The blade was cursed,” he said loudly to get her attention. “There’s nothing anyone can do,” added more kindly, as steadily as he could, but Harry could hear the strain.

   “It can’t ever be healed,” said Blaise softly, her hand reaching for her cheek.

   Parvati looked horrified. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, no I don’t believe you!” She turned from them, gripping Seamus’ hand and touching his face. “You’re going to be fine!”

   “We need to put pressure on the wound,” cried Hermione, scrambling back by Seamus’ side. “Someone in there must have something we can use, we can clean and bandage it-”

   She was looking at Harry, but Harry felt like he’d just plunged under water, like he’d done in the frozen lake. Her voice was muffled, her face was blurred.

   Seamus was dying.

   “Shhh,” came Seamus’ tired voice, and he followed it with another terrible cough. Sarah was crying by Harry’s side, knuckles white around her wand. “Harry,” whispered Seamus, his head resting his Parvati’s other hand. Harry came and crouched by Hermione.    

   “I’m here Seamus,” he made his voice say. “Everything’s okay.”

   Seamus actually laughed. “No it’s not.”

   Harry wasn’t sure if it was hysteria, but a laugh cracked from his constricted throat as well. “No,” whimpered Parvati. “No you’re fine.”

   “Harry, I’m sorry,” managed Seamus, which made everyone react, but Harry got there first

“There’s nothing – _nothing_ to be sorry for Seamus,” he told him sternly.

Parvati nodded earnestly, tears shining on her long eyelashes. “You were so brave,” she said. “I was so proud of you.”

   Seamus smiled. “You too,” he said weakly. Parvati tried to smile back, but she couldn’t quite manage it. Sarah bit her trembling lip and held on tightly to Harry’s good arm. Seamus looked up at her, smiling weakly as his eyes fluttered closed. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he breathed.

   “They’re winning in there,” said Blaise, eyes glancing through the tree line. Draco nodded in agreement and the ball of sunshine darted between the two of them, casting dark shadows from its glare. “ _Freiheit,_ I mean.”

   Seamus nodded. “Good,” he murmured. “Good.” He pulled his hand from Parvati, who seemed reluctant to let it go until she realised he was pawing at his neck.

   “Hold on,” she said understandingly, fishing with stiff fingers under his collar and drawing out a golden Celtic Cross on a fine glimmering chain.

   Seamus smiled weakly, and with what was left of his strength, began to pray. “Hail, Mary, Mother of God, venerable treasure of the…whole universe…” Parvati subdued a dry sob, and joined in with him. “Hail, Mother of God. You – you enclosed under your heart the…infinite God whom no space can contain. Hail, Mary, Mother of God…Hail, Mary, Mother of God…”

   His voice was slipping away from him. Harry reached forward again, clutching his hand tightly. “Hold on Seamus, hold on…”

   A last breath escaped his lips, and as dawn broke over the Black Forest of Germany, his hand fell from Harry’s grasp onto the cold and muddy floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :'( 
> 
> I'm sorry <3 xxx


	8. Stop Crying Your Heart Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Where is my SON!” Lily Potter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is the last proper chapter where everything gets wrapped up (sort of, you'll see). Then after that we have a little epilogue to take us into book two. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey with Harry and Draco, but really this is just the begining! I hope you'll continue on into the rest of the trilogy, and remember, if you want to find out more please come and find us on Tumblr and Facebook (The HP Dream Trilogy/@thehpdreamtrilogy).
> 
> Okay, back to Germany...

Chapter Seven -

   Stop Crying Your Heart Out

 

Hold on

Hold on

Don’t be scared

You’ll never change what’s been and gone

 

May your smile

Shine on

Don’t be scared

Your destiny may keep you warm

 

Coz all of the stars

Have faded away

Just try not to worry

You’ll see them some day

Take what you need

And be on your way

And stop crying your heart out

 

Oasis

 

   “S-Seamus?” Parvati croaked, hands shaking, lip trembling. _“Seamus?”_

   Harry reached numbly over to her with his good hand, covered in grime and blood. “Parvati,” he whispered, fingers fumbling on the material of her coat. Her face broke, and she crumpled onto Seamus’ lifeless body sobbing.

   _“No,”_ she cried, inconsolable. _“No, Seamus – Seamus wake up, come back!”_ She pawed at him, gripping handfuls of rain-drenched shirt, the blood already washing away into the ground. _“No, no, no, no, no...”_ Her whole body was vibrating with grief, her face buried into her unknowing friend, his eyes staring at the rain.

   Horror crept up in Harry like bile. His insides tore against themselves as furious anger and hopelessness clamoured to get out, to erupt out into the sodden night and snatch Seamus back from the blackness that had taken him.

   He couldn’t be gone, he just couldn’t.

     Sarah dropped to her knees as something terrible and broken escaped her throat. She nuzzled her head under Harry’s arm, howling into his clothes, and even though the pain from his broken arm was incredible, he let her.

   He couldn’t move, he was too afraid to. If he moved, if he unfroze, then it would be real. He wanted to cling onto this moment as long as the world would let him. He couldn’t be dead, not Seamus, he was so full of life, so vibrant. But here he was, empty. A shell.

   Draco stood up and away, backing up towards Blaise, who was watching on silently, letting the rain run down her face and neck, soaking her clothes, dripping from her short sword. Her mouth was a tight line, her eyes unblinking. Draco stood shoulder to shoulder with her, and the ball of sunshine, ever faithful, hung still between them, sizzling in the downpour.

   Hermione was rocking back and forth by Harry’s side, crying for the boy she’d only just met. Crying at the cruelty of it all. How many more children had given their lives in the battle inside? Harry found himself wondering. How many other bright lights had been snuffed out.

   The rain pelted into the trees, running in rivets down the trunks, sliding along the ground, mixing with the dirt under Harry’s knees, plastering his hair to his bloody forehead. With great effort, he slowly leaned over, and closed Seamus’ eyes. Despite the deluge hammering down on their heads, Harry could still feel the hot tears creeping from his eyes and into the edges of his mouth.

   Movement from down the path snapped him from his reverie in an instant, jerking him to his feet, hand snatching for his wand. Draco and Blaise were around and armed no more than a second later.

   “Harry Potter?” A voice cried as two figures became more and more visible. “Harry is that you?”

   “Who’s there!” he shouted as the two figures got bigger. “Don’t come any closer!” He pulled Sarah behind him and Hermione whipped out her wand too. Parvati clutched fearfully at Seamus’ body, as if they were threatening to hurt him further. What if they were Death Eaters, still fighting for their dead master?

   They’d have to get through Harry first.

   A short, portly man with a walrus moustache and a younger gangly man skidded to a slippery halt in front of them, wands raised defensively. “It’s okay” cried the gangly one, swiping light brown hair from his face. “We’re with the Ministry, Alistair Moody sent us to find you!”

 

***

 

   Harry let his vision wander numbly around the auditorium as the Healer did her work. He’d been dried off magically by Mad Eyed Moody (the real one, Harry reminded himself, not the imposter he’d known last year). His rucksack and coat had been returned to him by a Ministry official from beside the body of Bellatrix, and he now had the coat draped over his shoulders as his cuts, bruises and bones were being seen to.

   There was nothing they could do about the lightning bolt scar. Harry told them that was okay.

   They were sat on a plinth half way up the stairs of a very busy auditorium. People being healed, interviewed, arrested. Some sat alone, staring out at the aftermath as Harry himself was now doing, others wandered about slowly, calling out names of friends and loved ones.

   The battle was won, but Harry couldn’t really feel it.

   Moody sat beside him, very similar to the Mad Eyed Moody Barty Crouch Jr had pretended to be; same revolving blue eye, same wooden peg leg. Though there were slight differences too, the leg was a different design, and the chunk normally missing from his nose was still there. The chunk was taken off in his own world when Moody had captured Bellatrix Lestrange and Barty Crouch Jr, but that had never happened here. And now Bellatrix was dead, and Barty...well no one seemed to know where Barty Jr had gone to, and the thought made Harry very uncomfortable indeed. He could well imagine that Voldemort’s most faithful follower was already plotting ways to bring his master back.

   An imposing African gentleman in colourful robes called Kingsley Shacklebolt stood to Moody’s left.   Apparently they had coordinated the attack as soon as Snape had told them what was happening, but could only apparate close enough after Voldemort disappeared, which Harry had just been explaining. “So, he just...vanished?” said Moody, repeating Harry’s words in his old gravelly voice over the din of people talking and moving around, trying to clear up the wreckage the fighting left behind. He was more astonished than accusing. Harry nodded and pointed to his scar.

   “That’s what gave me this, and then everyone’s wands worked again,” he said, his voice flat. “I think he’s dead.”

   “But, it’s just so impossible,” said Kingsley in wonder.

   “Oh,” said Harry, pulling his eyes away from Blaise Zabini thirty or so feet away. She was talking calmly with her mother, who was sobbing with her hands cuffed behind her back. The cut on Blaise’s face throbbed vividly, refusing to be properly healed. Just like Harry’s scar. Just like Seamus. “He’s probably not really dead, he’ll probably try and come back. So the stone must be destroyed.” Once he’d pulled it out of the mirror, Harry had entrusted Moody with the Philosopher’s Stone; he couldn’t be sure it was the safest thing to do, but Harry couldn’t wait to be rid of it and Moody with his suspicious nature would be sure to do the right thing. He hoped.

   Kingsley raised his eyebrows as Moody just nodded and muttered “Yes, yes,” to himself as he scribbled into his notebook.

   “How can you be so sure?” asked Kingsley.

   Because that’s what happened before, Harry wanted to say, but instead he let his eyes travel again. “He’s very powerful,” was all he said. Lucius Malfoy was being escorted across the auditorium by a flank of armed guards. He was glaring at Harry as he went, with hatred and anger that seemed to connect them like a spark. Draco had refused to see him, which Harry thought was probably a wise move.

   He sighed, tired. This isn’t real, Harry told himself again, just as he’d been telling himself for the last half hour. This isn’t real, real is home and that’s where I’m going to go back to. Seamus is alive at home.

   But his parents weren’t. His mother had died to save him, and in doing so had just saved him again. Her sacrifice in his skin.

   Which he couldn’t really explain, to anyone here, even people he felt he should trust. Luckily he didn’t have to.

   Moody was waving his hand dismissively. “We’d be fools to assume he’s gone for good Shacklebolt,” he growled, still scribbling. “Constant vigilance.” Harry was sort of glad he really said that. “And you,” he carried on, turning to the plinth above Harry. “You really helped set all this up?”

   Harry turned so he could see Draco as well, getting protests from the Healer which he ignored. Draco was sat by Hermione and Sarah, all three of them with blankets draped over their shoulders like Harry. Parvati had refused to leave Seamus’ side, and now sat with him up near the entrance hall, where all the other covered dead lay, waiting to be claimed.

   “Yes,” Draco said quietly. “I was working with Severus.” He kept rubbing his hands together, pulling at his fingers, fiddling with his nails. His ball of sunshine had remained by his side until they’d been forced indoors by the medics, where Draco had simply turned to it and said “I’ll see you at home,” and it sped off back into the trees, not to be seen again. And then he had been healed too, his leg fixed from the spear in the tunnel, but his clothes were still covered in blood and dirt like the rest of them. The people from the Ministry, the ones who had won the battle once and for all, looked too shiny and clean in comparison.

   Moody nodded, back in his notebook. “Yes, yes, Snape kept saying. Glad you came to your senses boy.” Draco took in a sharp breath then visibly bit his lip, eyes blinking. Harry saw the grief wash over him again, the grief for his mother he’d put on hold back in the tunnels. What was there to stop it now?

   As he dropped his head, Harry watched as Hermione scooted over a little and rubbed his back, a gesture that seemed so at ease but to Harry was so strange. In her other hand she held the old key she’d kept from the potions challenge in the tunnel, and was rubbing her thumb on it. Despite everything it had managed to stay in her pocket. “And a Muggle born girl, fascinating,” continued Moody, more to himself than anyone else.

   “Uh-hem,” came a squeaky voice, and Harry caught a glimpse of Moody and Kingsley’s faces before he turned round to see who was talking. They weren’t happy. A squat sort of woman with mousey brown curls poking out from a little hat stood before them, hands folded in front of her, a simpering smile of her face. Harry couldn’t help but think she resembled a large toad, all clad in pink, and instantly felt his guard go up. Umbridge. Unfortunately Harry had already had a few run-ins with this terrible woman, and her appearance was not good news.

   “I do hope you are going to question the children a little more thoroughly than _that_ , Alistair,” she said sweetly, completely ignoring Harry and the others. “That story of theirs is a _little_ farfetched don’t you think?”

   “Excuse me?” said Draco, anger rising in his voice. But Umbridge ignored him. Moody, however had her full attention as he snapped his book shut, stood up and stretched his arms.

   “Nah Dolores,” he said, his magical blue eye whizzing all over the place. “Course we’ve got more questions, but they’re knackered and now’s the time to send them home.”

   “Oh,” began Umbridge in protest, her voice still sweet and that smile still smiling. “But it’s all so silly, we need to talk to them about so many discrepancies-”

   “Not today,” said Kingsley firmly in his thick accent, as he pinged a large silver coin at Harry who caught it with his left hand, his broken arm finally mended. He headed away from Dolores Umbridge, Moody limping on his wooden leg by his side.

   “Besides,” said Moody through that frightening lop-sided grin of his. “Story sounded fine to me.”

 

***

 

   It’s not real, Harry thought again as he followed Moody and Kingsley through the injured and incarcerated. Umbridge was still chirping pleasantly about Harry and the others being filthy little liars as she picked her way between people like they were litter, but Harry tuned her out. Moody wasn’t listening, so why should he?

   He gripped the coin – a Portkey Kingsley had told him – in one hand, and Sarah’s hand in the other, guiding her up the plinths towards the entrance hall where a small sea of white sheets were spread out, concealing the dead that lay beneath. “It’s okay,” he whispered a little mechanically to her. But she showed no signs she’d heard him. She’d not spoken a word since Seamus had died.

   Parvati was not the only mourner kneeling by a lost friend, there were plenty more, too many in fact for Harry to want to think about. Because as much as he might want to tell himself this reality meant nothing to him, that it wasn’t his home and it didn’t really exist, how could he possibly deny the grief rolling off these people by his feet? Or the horror of those reliving the experience for the Ministry officials?

   The world had changed for these people. And it was Harry who had changed it.

   Parvati had stopped crying when they reached her, but was still hiccupping shallow breathes of air, her red and puffy eyes just staring at Seamus’ peaceful face, visible where she’d turned down the stiff white sheet. Kingsley stood to one side to let them gather. Moody was busily shooing Dolores Umbridge away, calmly but firmly talking to her about respect for the dead. Hermione was right behind the Potters, but Draco was nowhere to be seen.

   “He’s just saying goodbye to Blaise,” said Hermione at Harry’s questioning look. He nodded and crouched down by Parvati, who was stroking Seamus’ hair.

   “They haven’t got the Floo networks up yet,” he told her gently, “but they’ve given us a Portkey.” He showed her the big silver coin with strange engravings that Kingsley had given him. She slowly pulled her eyes away to look at him, then Kingsley, then Seamus again. “We’re going to Godric’s Hollow. All of us.” He wasn’t leaving Seamus behind under any circumstances.

   “It’s November,” she said softly. Harry paused, pulling the Portkey into his chest and throwing Hermione a look. She shrugged. “I...I already have his Christmas present. Weird Sisters tickets... on December 10th. I was going to give it to him next week – they’re only in the circle but I was going to put the tickets in a card and take a picture of his face. Then give him the picture on Christmas Day, as a joke. I...I...” She gripped the sheet, her breathing had become too shallow for her to get enough air in her lungs and she was shaking.

   “Parvati,” said Harry. It was all she needed to let go of Seamus and fling her arms around him instead. Harry hugged her back, letting her sadness encompass him too.

   They never should have come here, he never should have let them. He didn’t want to do this alone, and Seamus had paid the price. “I’m sorry,” he told her, but she shook her head and pulled away to look at him.

   “I know it’s not your fault, it’s not.” He didn’t have the heart to tell her how wrong she was.

   Draco appeared by Hermione’s side, hand holding reassuringly onto the hilt of his sheathed sword. He met Harry’s eyes. It was time to go.

   He looked at Kingsley and Moody who had just returned thankfully without Umbridge. “Thank you,” he said. “For letting us go home...for everything.”

   “You’ve been through enough,” said Kingsley with a nod.

   “I’ll come talk to you in a few days,” added Moody kindly. “Give you some time to rest.”

   Harry nodded, then held the silver coin out in front of him. Everyone else knelt down by him and Parvati, and on his cue touched the Portkey with one hand, then pulled back the sheet and took firm hold of Seamus’ clothes with the other.

   It began to glow, and as he felt the hooking sensation approaching Harry closed his eyes. “Let’s go home.”

 

***

 

   They landed with a soft thump at the end of the Potter’s front garden pathway, right where the Knight Bus had picked them up less than twelve hours ago. They gently let go of Seamus’ body, laying him on the ground, ground that thankfully hadn’t seen any rain unlike Germany. Harry fell back from his knees and sat, bracing himself with his hands as the sun burst over the horizon for the second time that morning.

   “Home,” murmured Sarah, standing up in the orangey haze and staring at the front door.

   The front door that flew open as Lily, James, Sirius and Remus came pounding out of it. _“SARAH!”_ screamed Lily, and Sarah’s face crumbled.

   “Mummy,” she whimpered. The adults swarmed the little girl as Draco and Hermione stood up like Harry had done and moved away from Seamus. Still, Parvati wouldn’t let him go.

   Sirius was the first to turn to grab Harry, but at the sight of Seamus he froze. “Oh my God,” he whispered.

   Lily untangled herself from Sarah, who began to cry again as her parents and godparents looked down at Seamus’ lifeless form. “What...” began James, but no more words came.

   “He’s gone,” said Parvati raggedly, holding his hand between hers, unable to tear her eyes from him. She bit her lip to try and stop the tears, but they fell anyway.

   Lily pulled Sarah into her, hiding her head. Though she was far too late to protect her, Harry thought. “How?” said James, disbelievingly, dropping to his knees and laying a hand on Seamus’ chest.

   “There was a battle,” said Harry, edging away from his father, from them all. “The blade was cursed, there was nothing they could do.”

   “Blade?” said James sharply, swinging his head around and looking at Harry. Lily had tears running from her eyes but her face remained stoic. “What...” James couldn’t seem to find the words. “What happened with You-Know-Who?”

   “Dead,” said Harry. He felt himself sway ever so slightly on the spot. The adrenaline was seeping out his system and exhaustion was taking over.

_“How?”_ asked James

   “Why was there a battle, who was fighting?” asked Remus.

   “Are you hurt?” Lily asked Harry. “Are are more of you hurt? Harry your head-?”

   “Who won the battle,” growled Sirius. “Who else died?”

   Harry couldn’t breathe. His rucksack dropped from his shoulder and he groped for the buttons on his coat, struggling to get it off. His vision swam, his lungs burned.

   _“Freiheit,”_ said Draco suddenly, causing the adults to look at him. As did Harry, letting his coat fall to the ground and sucking in air. Some of the focus came back to his vision. _“Freiheit_ won.”

   “You shouldn’t have been _fighting in the first place!”_ roared James, getting to his feet and pointing at Seamus. “I’ve known this boy his whole life! What have you _done Malfoy!”_

   Before Harry had even registered his feet moving, he was standing in between James Potter and Draco Malfoy. His wand was pointed at his father.

   “Saved my life,” said Harry, feeling his throat clamp, his vision still hazy. “Twice. I watched him stand up to _VOLDEMORT!”_

   Everyone tried to shout him down in panic, but Draco beat them to it. “It’s okay!” he cried. “The Taboo’s gone.”

   Harry didn’t know what that meant, but he was too busy glaring at his father to care. “He got a six foot wooden spear through his leg saving Hermione’s life too, and when-” his voice faltered, but he ploughed on through. “When Seamus was stabbed, when Draco could barely walk and I couldn’t even lift him, Draco _dragged_ Seamus from the battle, and then _ran_ to get help! So if you’re looking for someone to blame, blame ME!” He punched himself in the chest as he felt the tears teetering to fall from his eyes again. “I exposed Wormtail, I let Sarah be taken and then I let a bunch of inexperienced teenagers follow me into the Death Eaters’ lair! It’s MY FAULT!”

   He staggered backwards, casting a look at Seamus’ body and Parvati, who was staring open mouthed at him.

   “It’s all my fault.”

   He couldn’t stay a moment longer. Not when everything looking back at him reminded him of just how much he had failed this world he’d invaded like a parasite. This world that had as many tragedies as is did miracles. This world that would never be the same again. Because of him.

   So he ran, ran along the road and away from his parents, from the death that lingered like an angry spirit, clawing at the fragile remnants of Harry’s sanity. He ran until his legs ached, the cold wind cutting through his thin jumper. He veered into the tree line and continued running until he slipped on a patch of glossy leaves, causing him to land painfully on his hip and shoulder.   He let out a frustrated yell, the cry of an angry beast, and rolled on his front, searching for something to throw.

   His hand fell on a section of bark, and it was flying through the air and smashing into a silver birch before Harry could stop himself. Another, then another, Stones, wood, anything he could get a hold of. And then his wand was out, slashing at the trees, shaking the ground in rage. “I don’t want to be here anymore!” he hollered into the morning, his breath condensing in the crisp, bright air. He shivered in grief and cold. “You hear me!” he demanded of the universe. “I’ve made a mess of everything, and now I want you to SEND ME BACK!”

   “Hey!” cried a voice behind him, and Harry felt his weight sag as the fight blew out of him. He stumbled and braced himself on one of the tree trunks he hadn’t damaged, before looking up.

   A slightly out of breath Draco was leaning on his knees, eyes trained on Harry. “You can’t leave me alone with your family,” he said, straightening up, a note of incredulity in his voice. “They all hate me.”

   Harry stared at him. “You came after me?” he asked quietly.

   Draco seemed to consider him. “Yes,” he said simply. He looked deathly pale in the natural light; hair almost translucent, like a halo in the sunshine, shadows under his eyes jarring sharply against the whiteness of the rest of his features. His breath like Harry’s rose in hot steam from his mouth, his coat long lost in the caves of the Black Forrest.

   “Why?” said Harry, almost accusingly. He heaved himself off the tree and stepped towards the boy he’d spent his entire school life hating. “Why are you here, what’s _wrong_ with you!”

   Draco’s mouth was a taught line. “Seamus’ death wasn’t your fault.”

   “Yes it WAS!” Harry bellowed back, arms flinging out wildly. But then it was Draco’s turn to advance on Harry, catching him off guard.

   “We both told him not to come,” he retorted. “In fact I distinctly remember begging him to go back on several different occasions.”

   “So?” snapped Harry. “He’s still dead, we should have tried harder.”

   “Then who would have healed Parvati’s burn?” asked Draco. “My leg? Because I’m telling you right now we would have both bled to death without him.” Harry felt his arms fall to his side, the hollowness creeping back into the pit of his stomach that he’d managed to fill completely with anger.

   “He’s still dead, Draco,” he said, a little desperately.

   “So is the Dark Lord,” he replied. It wasn’t fierce though, it was factual. “Do you know how many more people died as well as Seamus to make that happen? Because I sure as Hell don’t.”

   “Are you telling me I shouldn’t care?” cried Harry, almost grateful to feel the anger edging back, subduing the terrible hollowness.

   Draco looked like he’d been physically struck. “Do you think I don’t care?” he said, wide grey eyes not moving from Harry’s.

   “I don’t know!” lashed out Harry. “I have no idea who you are anymore!” He covered the last couple of steps between him and Draco and shoved him in the chest. “Who are you! _What’s wrong with you!”_

   Draco let him push him, features cold, eyes glassy. “What’s wrong with you?” He retorted quietly. “You think you’re the only one hurting here?”

   His mother. Harry had totally forgotten. Feeling small and horrified he sank onto one of the freshly fallen logs, burying his head in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. He felt the log move, and realised Draco had perched beside him.

   The silence hung for a while. “I’m sorry too,” said Draco.

   “For what?” asked Harry numbly. The hollowness was back, but he’d rather it stayed now. The anger was unfounded and exhausting. He was only mad with himself anyway.

   Draco shrugged. “Take your pick.”

   Harry lifted his head and stared at the soft golden light shining through the thin tree line. “You’re nothing like the Draco I know,” he said after a time. His breathing was steadying itself and the panic that had almost engulfed him back at the house seemed to have all but gone.

   “Speak for yourself,” said Draco, staring at the same patch of dawn. “What got into you back there, defending me to your dad?”

   Harry turned to look at him. His hands were dropped between his knees, fingers pulling at each other again. “Well if you insist on being heroic, sometimes people will do that for you. You’d better stop if you don’t want it to continue.”

   Draco actually laughed. “Yes,” he said, shaking his head. “I better go steal something quickly.”

   Harry laughed and ran his hand through his filthy hair.

   They watched the sun rise for a while. “I don’t know what to do,” he confessed, fear prickling all over his skin as the daunting realisation hit him again that he was as far away from home as was humanly possible.

   “I don’t think anyone knows what to do,” said Draco. “The whole world’s gone and changed.”

   “You can say that again.”

   Draco seemed to consider what his next words were. “I meant it though. You shouldn’t blame yourself. Seamus’ death is awful, and you’ll probably never get over it-”

   “Thanks,” Harry interjected.

   “But think of how many lives you’ve saved in the future?” he finished. He pulled at one of the many threads hanging from the sleeve of his jumper. “I don’t mean to sound like a wanker, but I do think...I do believe that things are meant to be.”

Harry looked sharply at him. “Like fate? Destiny?”

   Draco shrugged. “I thought there was no way you’d come with me, and if you did I saw no way that you’d be able to defeat someone so powerful, so evil. But here we are...”

   “Yeah,” said Harry, Hermione’s words still ringing in his ears from the night before. “Here we are.”

   More silence. Not awkward, but thoughtful. “I must say though,” said Draco eventually. “Here is pretty cold.”

   With a start Harry realised he was almost completely numb. The sun may have been shining but it was still November, and with a cry he eased himself off the log, shaking painfully stiff limbs and blowing on his hands.

   “Yes,” he said, teeth chattering. Now his body had realised it was freezing it was going for it full force. “Shall we head back?”

   “Only if you’re ready?” asked Draco, hugging himself as he got to his feet. “You’ve smashed up enough trees to start a decent fire if you needed more time.”

   “No,” said Harry, stamping his feet. “No I want to go back, it was selfish to run off like that.”

   Draco exhaled a mouthful of frosty breath. “I’m sure they’ll understand mate.”

   Mate? Harry rubbed the back of his neck and rolled his aching shoulders. Had he really just had sympathy from Draco Malfoy?

   It felt surprisingly good.

 

***

 

   By the time they got back to the house everyone had left the garden, even Harry’s coat and bag were gone. He wasn’t surprised though, every one of them must have been feeling ripped to shreds by everything that had happened, and the weather wasn’t exactly balmy.

   He was starting to feel guilty about shouting at his dad like that. He’d lied to him earlier as well. Considering he’d been wanting it his whole life, their relationship really hadn’t got off to the best start.

   Harry was apprehensive as they approached the front door, realising he didn’t have any keys, but as he pushed it tentatively it swung in easily, obviously left off the latch for their return. He still stepped through the threshold feeling like an intruder. This wasn’t his home.

   Hermione was sat in the living room, clutching a mug of tea, staring into the steaming contents. “Harry!” she cried upon catching sight of them, and slammed the mug onto a little side table. She stood and faced him and Draco, unsure of what to do with her hands. “Are you alright?” she said eventually, giving in and throwing her arms around his neck. “You must be in such a state right now, but really, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for. It’s _not_ your fault, if it wasn’t for you Sarah wouldn’t be here and You-Know-Who wouldn’t be dead and-”

   “It’s okay,” Harry interrupted her very fast speech. He had a feeling she’d been rehearsing it. “Draco told me the same thing, and...” he sighed. “I know you’re right. I’m just not sure Seamus’ family will feel the same.”

   Hermione looked unsure. “Um, yes. You’re dad – and the other guy with the dark hair?”

   “Sirius,” Harry supplied.

   “Yes, him. Well, they’ve already taken Seamus’...” She paused, apparently unwilling to say the word ‘body’. “Well Seamus back to Ireland. Parvati went with them. He said to tell you.”

   Harry sighed again and dropped into the armchair. “Probably wanted to get away from me.”

   “No,” said Hermione sternly, like she were speaking to a child. “I think he wanted to get it over and done with as soon as possible. He said it was his and Sirius’ duty as members of the Ministry.”

   “You’re dad’s probably in shock, Harry,” said Draco. “He’ll be okay soon enough.”

   Harry couldn’t think of anything to say, so just stared into the fire instead. He could feel the other two behind him; Hermione reached back for her mug and began blowing on the tea for something to do. Draco crossed his arms and looked awkward.

   “Ah, there you are,” came Remus’ sympathetic voice as he wandered into the lounge from the direction of the library. “Are you okay Harry?” he asked, crouching in front of Harry’s knees. He glanced up at Draco. “Thanks for going after him,” he said genuinely.

   Draco shoved his hands in his pockets and gave a non committal shrug. Remus just smiled though and returned his attention to Harry. “I was discussing with Hermione how we should probably return her home to her parents.”

   Hermione slammed down her mug for a second time, managing to slosh quite a bit of tea on the table. “Oh yes!” she said, pulling anxiously at her hair. “Harry I realised I never let them know where I was, and I’ve been gone all night!”

   Harry rubbed his eyes and swore under his breath. “I completely forgot,” he said, feeling guilty yet again. “I’m so sorry.”

   “Stop saying you’re sorry,” she said firmly but not unkindly. “I chose to come with you, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. But I definitely need to go home right now.”

   Remus was nodding. “I agree. Shall the two of us take her back through the Floo network?” he offered Harry. “She said that’s how you came here.”

   Harry nodded, but it was Draco who spoke. “I’ll come too,” he said in a slightly shaky voice. Harry lifted his head and stared at him. As did Remus.

   “You will?” asked Harry. Even with everything that had happened, how different this Draco seemed to be, he couldn’t believe he’d just offered to escort Hermione Granger, a _Mudblood,_ to her house.

   Draco looked nervously between him and Hermione. “I’m assuming no vaccinations are required?” Harry couldn’t tell if he was joking.

   “No,” said Hermione, recovering her voice and actually touching his shoulder with her fingers. “No that’s fine, of course you can come too.”

   “Yes,” said Remus, a smile Harry couldn’t quite decipher on his face. “That would be great.”

   It didn’t take them long to bundle up again. Harry retrieved his coat from where it was hanging over a chair in the kitchen, then fished one from his wardrobe for Draco to borrow. As he left his room, he heard voices coming from Sarah’s room on the floor above. Lily was doing her best to soothe her youngest child, but Harry could still hear her crying.

   Pushing the cold feeling of accountability to one side, he concentrated on the task at hand, which was getting Hermione home. Sarah had her mum to keep her safe now, there wasn’t much else Harry could do. The sight of him would probably just upset her more, which made his stomach twist.

   Remus was waiting with the pot of Floo powder as Harry re-entered the living room, and after being told which station he wanted flung some into the grate, changing the flames green.

   “Pembury, Kent!” Remus instructed it confidently, then was gone in an instance.

   “I’ll go next,” offered Draco, leaving Harry and Hermione standing in the lounge, bathing in the early morning sunlight streaming through the big bay window.

   “You’ll be fine,” Harry reassured Hermione, throwing the glittering powder into the flames for her and calling out the station. “Just keep very still, like before.” Hermione nodded, only looking a little green. She stepped into the fire, and was whisked away just like the others. Harry took a moment to look around the room, out into the kitchen and in the gardens beyond the windows. He’d been running on adrenaline for goodness only knew how many hours, he hadn’t slept since yesterday afternoon and suddenly he was beyond tired, so much so he could barely keep his eyes open. He stood there with a handful of powder, some of it trickling through the cracks between his fingers and dusting the floor, wishing he could just curl up on the couch and sleep.

   He wasn’t ready to leave the Potter’s house yet; he’d already had to leave it twice, going for a third time illogically felt like he was pushing his luck on getting back again. But Hermione needed him, so with a resigned sigh he shook himself awake and threw the powder on the flames.

   Remus, Hermione and Draco were huddled together waiting for his entrance, which he tried to do as dignified as possible but his foot caught on a coal and he had to stumble to his feet.

   “Oh Mr Potter!” cried the familiar voice of the station’s guard as he launched forward to help Harry right himself. He roughly bashed the soot from Harry’s coat and gawped between him and the other three. “Is it true?” he cried, eyes lingering on the lightning bolt scar in a way Harry had known his whole life. “Is he really gone? Did you...was it you?” Harry gulped and looked at his companions. They all had a matching look of sad pride on their faces that Harry wasn’t exactly pleased to see.

   “Um,” he started, unsure of what to say to the old man whose eyes sparkled with tears. “Yes, he’s gone.” For now.

   “Bless my soul!” he whispered, pulling off his hat and clutching it to his chest. “Oh, this is, oh _wait_ until I tell my wife.” He seized Harry’s wrist, sudden excitement brightening his wet face. “I must give you a present! I want to – let me give you my dish!” He turned on his heels and scooped up the battered old Muggle satellite dish Harry had spotted on his last visit off the floor and held in out for Harry to take.

   “Oh,” he said, softly, completely baffled. It didn’t help that Remus was trying to act like the serious adult but was struggling to conceal his laughter behind the fist stuffed into his mouth. “That’s really nice of you. But...” He didn’t want to hurt the man’s feelings. “I’ve got to go somewhere now, could I collect it on the way back?” The man’s smile only broadened.

   “Course, course,” he said, grabbing Harry’s hand and shaking it. “Give me time to put a bow on it.”

   Even though the shops weren’t quite open yet, there were plenty of people bustling around the high street when the four of them stepped out into the cold November air. Harry led the way on the mostly silent journey, but he quite enjoyed how much Draco’s head turned this way and that, taking in all the Muggle sights. He probably hadn’t been to towns like this much, if ever, and Harry couldn’t help but compare it to his first visit to Diagon Ally.

   They made good time, marching past the same houses Harry had done the evening before – it seemed so long ago. The tree house was still there, pirate flag fluttering in the morning air.

   As they turned the corner into Hermione’s street, there was a police car parked outside, blue and red lights flashing. “Oh that can’t be good,” Harry breathed as Hermione paled, hands over her mouth.

   “What’s not good?” asked Draco, looking into the sky. Probably looking for a Dark Mark, Harry thought.

   “Muggle police,” he replied as they began walking slowly towards Grangers’ Orthodontics. “Like the Ministry law enforcement.”

   “I feel a memory spell coming on,” muttered Remus.

   “Not on my parents,” Hermione hissed back fiercely. But she was distracted by her pocket suddenly letting out a flurry of electronic beeps that made them all jump and stare. Hermione scrambled to fish inside, and looked in horror at the screen of her mobile phone. “Forty seven missed calls,” she said bleakly.

   “From your parents?” Harry asked.

   Hermione nodded and gulped. “Let’s not mess around then,” she said. She strode up the path and pushed the family entrance open, the one she and Harry had come out of only a few hours ago. “Mum!” she called out urgently. “Dad! It’s okay, I’m okay!” Footsteps came thundering from one of the back rooms, and then Hermione’s parents were in the entrance hall flinging their arms around their daughter.

   “Where have you _been!”_ shrieked her mother.

   “Are you alright!” said her father as two police officers came running after them.

   One of them, a portly blonde woman surveyed the scene and stepped forward. “Mrs Granger, is this your daughter?”

   “Y-yes,” stammered Mrs Granger between sobs.

   “And who are these people?” asked the blonde woman’s partner, a younger looking Indian man. The Grangers both suddenly stood back and took in Harry, Draco and Remus.

   “YOU!” bellowed Mrs Granger, and lunged for Harry, but Remus dove between them.

_“Obliviate!”_ he cried, aiming at the police officers, who staggered slightly as the spell hit them.

   Hermione was pulling at her parents arms, whispering urgently that they’d explain in a minute, as Remus put his arms around the officers. “I’m so sorry about all of this,” he said, smiling as he tore their report sheet from the notepad in the woman’s hand. “Such a silly misunderstanding, we’ll swing by later and explain everything.”

   “Hang on!” cried Mrs Granger as Remus shut the door on them. “Hang on, you need to interview these people! Charge them with kidnap!” She spun on Harry again, finger jabbed into his face. “You are going to tell me exactly what you’ve been doing with my daughter _right now!”_

   “Mrs Granger,” said Remus, stepping in. “Mr Granger, please, can we sit and talk? There’s a lot you need to know.”

   A hell of a lot, thought Harry.

 

***

 

   It took quite some convincing to get the Grangers to sit down in their living room, let alone listen to what Remus had to say, and when they _did_ finally listen, they didn’t take too kindly to his opening gambit of “congratulations, your daughter’s a witch.”

   But when Harry gave Hermione his wand and got her to perform several different spells, they lost their words all together. Remus and Draco both looked on impressed as she levitated all the ornamental plates with kittens painted on them around the room. Harry couldn’t blame them, even he was proud of how fast she was able to pick up the magic.

   They started by covering the basics – how Hermione could be born to two Muggle parents (what Muggles were) and why she hadn’t been called to school. Then came the tricky subject of Voldemort and the war, and then finally the even trickier matter of what had gone on last night.

   Mrs Granger was furious with everybody, at Remus for letting Hermione go, at Hermione for going, and at Harry for dragging her into it in the first place. At this point Harry started to get nervous she or her husband, or even Remus, would start to question how he and Hermione knew each other, when Mr Granger did just that.

   “So how _did_ you find yourself at our house last night again Harry?”

   “He saw me on the news,” said Hermione quickly, and repeated the story they had told Draco back in the underground tunnel.

   “I was planning on going and finding her for a while,” said Harry, getting into the lie.   “But the night before, I was attacked and I realised I had to stop putting it off. It just seemed so unfair she didn’t know who she was I decided to go find her.” He tried to look sheepish. “I know it was probably illegal or whatever, but I got so wound up by the injustice of it all.”

   He cautiously looked at the faces staring back at him; Hermione beamed approvingly, which was a good sign. Her dad smiled too. “Well you’re right,” he said, putting his arm around his daughter. “It was very unfair.”

   “So,” said her mother, rubbing her eyes tiredly. “You’re telling me you don’t know that bully Dominic Webber at all, that you wanted to tell Hermione she’s really a witch?”

   “Mrs Granger,” said Harry, as vigorously as his weary voice would manage. “If I were ever to meet that Webber idiot or any of his friends, I promise I would turn them all into toads. Old school style.”

   This seemed to warm Hermione’s mum to him somewhat. They talked for another half an hour or so, before Hermione actually fell asleep on her dad’s shoulder, clutching onto her old key again. “Maybe we should continue this another time,” said Remus upon noticing. Harry and Draco joined him in standing and thanking the Grangers for their understanding. Mrs Granger’s face suggested she had absolutely not forgiven them for letting Hermione go all the way to Germany to fight a hoard of crazy wizards, but at least she remained civil. Harry knew she had a point, he just hoped she didn’t go too hard on Hermione for it.

   Sensing their movement, Hermione stirred from her dozing. “You’re leaving?” she asked, getting quickly up and blinking her eyes.

   “You need to sleep,” Harry told her gently.

   “But what about...you know?” Harry did know, how could he forget? But he was pretty sure he’d still be in the wrong universe eight hours from now, and she looked beyond exhausted.

   “We can deal with it later,” he said, giving her a hug. He was certain Mrs Granger made a tutting noise but Harry ignored her. They made their goodbyes, and once more Harry, Draco and Remus were out in the cold, walking their way back to the Floo station.

   Draco hadn’t spoken much at the Grangers, and now he looked lost in thought, a small frown creasing his brow as he stared at the grey pavement they were travelling on. Harry wished he could guess what was going on in his head, but he honestly couldn’t say.

   As they made their way back through the town more and more Muggles were crowding the streets, bags filled with early Christmas presents, bored children swinging on their parents’ hands. Nobody noticed the three of them slipping into the Floo station.

   The elderly guard presented Harry with his satellite dish, complete with an elaborate red bow, which Harry took with a smile. “Such an honour,” the guard kept saying to himself, shaking Harry’s hand again.

   As they stepped up to the fireplace, Draco finally spoke. “I think I’m going to go back to the manor,” he said. “Back home.” His hands were in his pockets again, and he seemed to have trouble lifting his gaze from the floor. Remus paused, hand full of Floo powder.

   “Yes,” he said eventually. “Yes of course. If you need anything, anything at all just let us know.” Draco nodded, and managed a small smile before his eyes turned to Harry. Remus looked at Harry too. “I’ll just...give you two a minute then, shall I?” And without another word he flung the powder into the grate and disappeared into the flames.

   The guard was sat back at his desk, the Daily Prophet with Harry’s picture on the cover propped up in front of him, but his eyes were clearly peering over the top, watching the two boys down the length of the shop. Harry shifted the weight of the dish onto his hip. His arm was still aching a bit from the break he’d had earlier and holding an 8lb hunk of metal wasn’t helping.

   “Thank you,” said Draco, looking at his scuffed up shoes. Harry gave up and put the dish down.

   “Oh,” he said, suddenly feeling awkward. “Y’know – no problem.” This made Draco look up, one eyebrow arched.

   “No problem?” he repeated, pulling his hands from his pockets and holding them up at his sides. “You just...you...you were there weren’t you!” he said, and much to Harry’s surprise a light, relieved laugh escaped his throat. “That man had so much to pay for, and now he has, they _all_ have. Because of you!”

   “Because of us,” said Harry pointedly, then rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ve got to be honest Draco, I never thought I’d see the day when we’d be on the same side. Of anything.”

   “Me neither,” he said with a shrug. “If _I’m_ honest, I always thought you were a vindictive, glory-hunting elitist.”

   Harry couldn’t help but smile. “Funny, that’s exactly what I thought about you.”

   “Well,” said Draco, wrapping his arms around himself and pulling half a smile. “I guess you’ve found your glory now. You know I heard some of the Ministry guys calling you ‘The Boy That Lived?’ You’ve got a title and everything.”

   “You’re a hero!” cried the guard from his chair. Harry had quite forgotten he was there, and when he blinked and looked over the man suddenly got shy and hid totally behind his newspaper.

   Draco shook off Harry’s other coat and gave it back to him. “I guess I’d better get going,” he said, fishing out some Floo powder from the pot on the mantel. “I think I’m going to go sleep for a week.”

   It was Harry’s turn to laugh. “Good plan.” And then without even pausing to consider it, Harry reached out and gave Draco Malfoy a hug, just like he would have done to Ron. His arms were already around him when Harry became aware of how abnormal the action was, when Draco returned the embrace.

   “I’ll...see you around?” he said, letting go after a few seconds. There was something cautiously hopeful in his tone, and Harry realised that if this was what Draco Malfoy could be like, he actually wouldn’t mind seeing him again either. He nodded, and Draco threw the powder into the fire.

   “Take care,” said Harry as he stepped into the flames, and with a nod of the head he was gone.

 

***

 

   Harry managed to cling onto the satellite dish and his spare coat as he Flooed back to Godric’s Hollow, and was met by a very strange look on his mother’s face as he stepped from the flames. “Present,” said Harry with a shrug, and placed the dish and coat on the floor by the mantle. Lily was sitting on the sofa facing the fireplace, and Harry dropped tiredly in the armchair on the right. “How’s Sarah?” he asked, rubbing his face to get some life back into it.

   “Okay,” said Lily, fidgeting with a thread at the foot of her jeans. “She’s stopped crying.”

   “Well that’s good,” said Harry, genuinely pleased.

   “She’s started throwing things instead.”

   “Ah.” Girl after his own heart, thought Harry.

   “Harry,” said Lily slowly after he’d spent a few minutes listlessly staring into the fire. “Could you come into the kitchen?”

   Harry turned to look at her, and as soon as he saw her expression his stomach dropped. She was trying to look calm, smile even, but there was something very wrong with her eyes. “Um, okay,” he said, feeling his pulse start to race. What could possibly be wrong _now,_ he thought as he struggled to get his coat off and followed Lily through the open door leading to the kitchen.

   Sirius was sitting at the large oak table where Harry had had his one and only family dinner, where Lily had filled his rucksack with sandwiches. He had a fat, cream coloured envelope he was twirling between his hands. He gave Harry a weak smile as he took a seat; Lily positioned herself by Sirius’ side, and suddenly Harry felt like he was being interviewed.

   “What’s wrong?” he couldn’t help but ask, his mouth dry as a bone. Sirius and Lily exchanged a glance, then Sirius placed the letter carefully on the wood, face down so Harry could see it had been opened.

   “I did what you asked,” Sirius began. “Before you went to Germany.” Harry’s eyes flicked to Lily, who was staring at her lap, almost on the verge of tears. All he could do was nod. Had Sirius found anything? Was that what this was about – had he discovered something about parallel universes? He’d told him _not_ to involve his parents though, he thought anxiously.

   He made himself nod, then Sirius sighed. “I was in the library, I remembered I’d done some kind of History project back at school, the second or third year. Obviously that’s a long time ago, but I’d done some research with Nearly Headless Nick. He liked to tell stories.”

   Harry, could feel his breath catching in his throat. Where was this going? “Okay,” he said slowly.

   “Nick said over the centuries, a few people had gone missing, and some had come back swearing they’d travelled further than any man had gone before.” Harry was certain he stopped breathing. Was Sirius saying other people had fallen into other realities, and more importantly, that they’d got _back?_

   “So I was on the ladder, looking on one of the top shelves for James’ old text books, when there was this noise, like thunder, and the floor started trembling.” Harry forced a breath in. A storm, like the one that had suddenly appeared outside the old History of Magic classroom?

   “It was coming from in here,” he indicated the kitchen. “So that’s where I ran, and the closer I got, the more distorted the world got. Lily came too – James and Remus were outside and didn’t hear a thing.

   “I was seeing double of everything, perfectly. But then I saw this.” He picked up the letter, scooted it over to Harry, then tapped the table with his fingers. “It was right here, in the middle. But the thing was, whilst everything else was overlapped like two separate pictures, there was definitely only one letter. Then it was like someone snapped an elastic band, and everything sprung back to where it should have been. Leaving the letter.”

   Very carefully, Harry picked up the envelope and turned it over to see the address. And his heart stopped.

   For her last birthday, Harry had bought Hermione a Quick Quotes Quill to help her dictate her homework. It was a lot more accurate than the one Rita Skeeter was so fond of, but it insisted on making this strange wiggle every time it wrote a capital ‘H’ that looked nothing like the rest of Hermione’s handwriting. It drove her crazy, and refused to go away no matter what how many charms and spells she tried on it.

   This envelope had Harry’s name on the front, nothing else. And there was the wiggle.

   Was this from _his_ Hermione? Or could someone else have the same quill problem? With Hermione’s hand writing.

   “I think you should open it Harry,” said Sirius, his fingers propped under his chin. “I know it’s got your name on it, but I thought it might have been related to Sarah so I read it. I’m sorry, but...”

   His voice sounded strangely detached, and it made nausea creep up Harry’s insides. He flicked the envelope over and prised out several folded sheets of thick cream parchment. The letter was addressed to Harry, and where his name sat, there was the wiggle again.

   “Read it aloud,” Sirius instructed, but Harry had a feeling they both knew what it said already.

   Sweating with anticipation, Harry began recite. “Dear Harry,” stated Hermione’s neat and tidy calligraphy. “We pray this letter finds you intact, and that you have not strayed too far from where you started. Dumbledore and McGonagall have been helping us extensively since your disappearance. We had to go through all your stuff, I really hope you don’t mind-

   “Tell him about the book!” Harry read it aloud before he twigged Ron’s handwriting had just intruded on Hermione’s. They were both talking to him. He felt a lump rise in his throat, and had to take a moment to compose himself before he could continue.

   “Yes, I’m getting to that Ron! So, I found a book in the restricted section of the library, Dumbledore gave us permission. It was called ‘The Boundaries of The Universe’ by Estella Linyar, and it talked about something called a ‘Dimensional Hotspot.’ We think that’s what you went through, it says there’s one just outside the History room where the window was smashed, was that you?

   “He can’t reply Hermione.

   “Stop interrupting. So this Hotspot is like a-

   “Crazy door!

   “The book says ‘gateway between the delicate fabrics of the space-time continuum’.” Harry could practically hear her upset at being undermined.

   “Crazy door gets the point across quicker. Mate, Dumbledore reckons you’ve landed in a parallel universe. I think it’s mental, but you’re bloody well not anywhere else as far as we can see.

   “When all possible options have been removed you must consider the impossible, Ron,” Hermione scalded.

   Harry was as cold as ice. He dared raise his eyes from the parchment to look at his mother and godfather. “You said you were at the school,” said Lily in little more than a whisper. “When you woke up, you said that’s where you just were. I thought you were delirious.”

   Harry bit his lip, he didn’t know what to say, except; “Yes, I was.”

   “You were talking about the Weasleys. They had a son called Ron.” Harry nodded again. Both the adults were incredibly pale.

   “Harry,” said Sirius. “Are you telling us this is _true?_ That when you collapsed last night, that you...that you...”

   “Crossed over from a parallel universe and took your Harry’s body,” finished Harry numbly. “Yes.”

   “But,” Sirius said, running his hand through his hair and leaning back. “That’s _impossible.”_

   “Why do you think I couldn’t tell anybody!” cried Harry, all the terror he’d been suppressing bubbling to the surface. “Why do think I went to go find Hermione!”

   There was a beat before Lily spoke. “You’re not my son.” It wasn’t a question. But that just made it sting even more.

   “I’m not the Harry you know, no,” he confirmed, his voice catching.

   “Then where is he?”

   Harry froze where he sat. “What?” he mumbled.

   “Where’s my SON!” she suddenly yelled, jumping to her feet and knocking her chair back. She grabbed his jumper and shook him. Sirius leapt to his feet and pulled her back, leaving Harry trembling.

   Lily was shaking too with anger and fear. “I don’t know,” he croaked. “I have no idea. I didn’t plan this I swear, it was an accident.”

   “Have you replaced him, will he come back if you leave?”

   “I don’t know HOW to leave!” retorted Harry.

   “Carry on reading,” said Sirius, pulling Lily back into the chair next to him. Lily made to carry on yelling, but Sirius interrupted. “Trust me, keep reading,” he cried. “I think our Harry will come back, I do.” Harry took a few breaths to steady himself. He’d shouted at and lied to his father, and made his mother so upset she’d lost control and grabbed him. He’d probably got his sister psychologically damaged for the rest of her life. He was nothing but poison.

   He had dropped the letter when his mother had attacked, so with a shaking hand he picked it up and found where he’d stopped reading.

   “We’ve written this letter with the intention of recreating your Dimensional Leap,” Harry continued dictating Hermione’s words. “Now you’ve generated a pathway the book says the hotspot will be weak and the letter should follow along in your wake, rather than go to any other universe, creating a thread between the two worlds. The spell was really hard, Dumbledore did it, but we’ve put a simple retrieval charm on the letter, so all you have to do is activate it and you should come back home.

   “Should.” Harry saw Ron’s doubt, but it took all his strength not to jump up and fire the spell at the letter that instant. He could go home, as easy as that? There was still another page of writing though, so Harry carried on, not looking at the adults watching him. He knew they must have a million questions, but he had to answer his own first before he could help them.

   “Shh Ron! The sooner you come back though the better Harry, things aren’t great here.

   “Harry, it’s Sirius...” Harry felt the word die in his mouth as he looked up and the young and healthy looking Sirius before him.

   “Keep reading,” he said, eyes fixed on Harry with a frightening sort of urgency.

   “He’s not getting a retrial. Fudge wants to make an example of him, and they’re going to perform a Dementor’s kiss first thing Monday morning!” Harry heard the panic rise in his voice as he spoke, and as soon as he saw the word ‘Dementor’ it was his turn to jump to his feet and knock back his chair, practically shouting the last few words. Then it was like he couldn’t read fast enough.

   “And that’s not all,” said Ron’s writing. “They’ve hauled Lupin in for aiding and abetting a wanted criminal, he’s facing a life sentence in Azkaban. My dad’s not left the Ministry since it happened, they’re refusing to let him see them but he won’t leave them.” At this point Harry’s voice broke. He felt the tears in his eyes as he slumped back into his chair. He was going to lose everything, they were taking everyone from him, anyone he could remotely call family apart from Hermione and the Weasleys.

   “No,” he whispered, fighting back the tears as the anger in him rose. They weren’t going to get away with this. He wouldn’t let them.

   The letter finished with Hermione’s hand once more. “We don’t know what to do.” They signed their names, saying they hoped he’d be back as soon as possible, and he let the parchment fall to the table.

   “You know a different Sirius,” said Sirius, talking about himself in the bizarre third person way Harry had gotten used to over the last twenty four hours. “And he’s in trouble?”

   Harry wondered if he’d eaten anything substantial in the past few hours whether or not it would currently be coming back up right about now. It certainly felt like it.

   “The world I come from is a very different place,” he said, hugging himself and staring into the middle distance. “Something really bad happened to you, and I lost my temper in the History classroom, the old one that never gets used-”

   “Because Nick said that’s where everyone vanished,” Sirius interrupted. “People thought it was cursed.”

   Harry stared at him a moment. Those people must have done what he had done. “Hermione, the other Hermione from here, reckons I was so angry about what was happening to you, I directed myself to a place where it had never happened. Any of it. She thinks destiny needed me here.”

   Sirius and Lily looked at him, after a moment, his mother spoke. “Because you knew about Wormtail.”

Harry let go of the breath he didn’t really know he’d been holding. It made no real sense, but he felt like a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “Yes,” he said, able to look at them again. “From what we could tell, all the differences here stem from one crucial change. In this world, Sirius was your Secret Keeper when I was a baby. In mine...in mine he convinced Dumbledore to switch to Wormtail at the last minute without telling anyone to throw Voldemort of the trail. Wormtail handed us straight to him.”

Lily and Sirius both snapped in identical breaths of shock. “He-” continued Harry, struggling to control his voice. “Voldemort came to the house...this house.” He turned to Lily. “James told you to run whilst he held him off. I hear it clear as day whenever I’m near Dementors, your voices, your last words.

   “He died first, he fought till the end but it wasn’t enough. You barricaded yourself in my room, but Voldemort got through. He said he’d let you live if you just gave me to him, but you wouldn’t do it. You begged him to take you and spare me.”

   Sirius was gripping Lily’s hand so hard both their knuckles were white. “You died protecting me...you wouldn’t move.” Harry was really struggling with his voice now and found he had to stare at the grain in the table rather than face his mother. “You gave up your life to save me. But when Voldemort tried to kill me too, the Avada Kedavra rebounded and killed him instead. Your sacrifice saved me, it was stronger than he ever was.” He paused, considering what to say. “And it saved me and Sarah last night.”

   “What?” stammered Lily, a single tear falling down her face.

   “I was able to defeat Voldemort last night because I might have the other Harry’s body, but it’s my soul, and my soul is saturated with that sacrifice. And now your Harry has the scar to prove it too”

   Lily and Sirius were still linked together and they gaped at the lightning bolt. “What about Sirius?” whispered his mother.

   Harry gripped the table. “Wormtail cornered him...you...in a street packed with Muggles the day after you died. He shouted how you’d betrayed us, then blew up the street, killing a dozen people and turning himself into a rat. Sirius was sent to Azkaban without trail, the evidence seemed so undeniable against him and the Ministry wanted to make an example out of him. Wormtail lived as a rat for twelve years, until you managed to escape from prison and come looking for him. I...me, Ron and Hermione...were there when you confronted him, and so was Remus, we tried to hand him over to the Ministry, but he escaped from us so you had to go on the run again.”

   Harry wiped his damp forehead. “That was last summer. Then a few days ago we heard the Ministry caught you again, and now...” he flicked the corner of his letter in disgust. Of course Fudge was just going to sweep Sirius under the rug, anything for an easy life, who cared about the truth, right?

   “Oh Harry,” said Lily softly, moving around the table to embrace her son who wasn’t really her son. He buried his face into her clothes, losing himself in the closeness.

   “Right,” said Sirius, his voice strangled. “Sod that for a game of soldiers. We’re getting you home and you’re saving my ass. I don’t care what universe you’re in, I’m still your godfather and I’m not leaving you alone so help me God.”

 

***

 

   Harry leant against the wall of the stairs leading up to Sarah’s attic bedroom. He’d spent the last half hour discussing things further with Lily and Sirius; if he was actually going to leave this place he had to make sure they knew exactly what had happened with Voldemort – just how he’d been able to cancel out the killing curse, the Parseltongue, the connection of the wands and how he knew about the Philosopher’s Stone. And most importantly, that Voldemort would probably try and come back. He’d told them all about Quirrell, Tom Riddle and especially what had happened in the graveyard this summer. He knew enough about Voldemort to realise that death wasn’t going to stop him for long.

   And now he found himself here on these stairs. Lily had apologised for being angry, but Harry could tell she was still desperately worried about getting her own Harry back in one piece. Sirius said he was convinced that as Harry had forced his doppelganger out when he’d entered their reality, as soon as he left the other Harry would be sucked back into his rightful body. The body Harry had scarred. Harry just hoped that would be the least of his troubles.

   So now he was trying to get enough courage together to apologise to his father, and somehow say goodbye. Forever. But James and Remus knew nothing, and Sarah knew a little but not nearly the full extent. He was going to have to choose his words very carefully, but he was so wrought with emotion he doubted he’d be able to get a single coherent sentence out.

   He knew time was precious, so he finally quit stalling and knocked on the door. “Come in,” came James’ voice. Harry pushed open the door, and was met with a scene of devastation. Sarah really had gone a rampage, all her books were on the floor, posters were ripped, clothes hanging from anything with an edge. The only thing that looked untouched was Barney the tortoise’s tank, although Barney himself was cowering somewhat in his shell.

   James was sat on the bed with Sarah, who was clutching an enormous teddy bear and sucking her thumb whilst staring straight ahead. The teddy was missing an eye, and Sarah herself had feathers stuck at all angles in her tangled hair. She was wearing a pair of pyjamas with a unicorn on the front wearing sunglasses. Remus was sat back in an armchair that Harry thought he must have conjured into existence as he didn’t remember it being there yesterday. Everyone looked shattered.

   And much to Harry’s surprised, they all looked pleased to see him. James broke into a relived smile and patted the bed. “Hey mate,” he said affectionately, sweeping several dolls missing various limbs off the duvet. “Come and join us.” Harry was a little nervous, but he sat anyway. Sarah let go of the bear and scrambled over to him, flinging her arms around his waist and laying her head in his lap.

   “She’s told us the whole story,” said James, stroking his daughter’s back. She didn’t respond, just kept staring straight ahead. Harry looked down at her. Even he didn’t know the full story – what had happened to her before Harry had arrived? He knew she’d been hurt, he’d seen Wormtail doing it, and he suddenly regretted not inflicting more pain on the traitorous git than he had. He hoped he got locked up, for a long time. And if anyone deserved the Dementor’s kiss it was him, not Sirius.

   Harry pulled his thoughts from the darkness that was swirling around them. Revenge was not what he wanted, he wanted justice, which would come later. Right now he wanted to say goodbye, thank you, and all the other million things that were flying around his brain.

   “I’m sorry I shouted at you,” he managed first. “I was upset-”

   “No, I’m sorry,” interrupted James, throwing him off guard. “I shouldn’t have accused Mal-” he stopped himself. “Draco like that. Your friend Hermione explained everything to us while he was going to fetch you. Is he here now?”

   Harry shook his head. “He went home, I don’t think he’s been there in a very long time.”

   “Hmm,” said James, stroking Sarah’s hair absentmindedly. “I should probably apologise to him as well.”

   Harry gave a small nod. “I’m still sorry though,” he pressed on, trying to remember the list of things he’d made mentally that he wanted to get across. He was never going to get the chance to talk to his dad again, but the more he thought about it the more his throat clamped. “I lied to you, about going to Terry’s, and then I shouted. I didn’t mean to do any of that, it’s just been really hard...” He trailed off, his hand tracing patterns in the bedspread. “I just wanted you to know that.”

   “Of course I know that,” said James. “I don’t care about any of that, I care that you’re both back here with us. I’ve never felt so helpless in my entire life, knowing you were all by yourselves. But you’ve both been incredibly brave, and now everything’s okay.”

   Harry couldn’t look at him. Everything was not okay. Everything was decidedly unfair. Why couldn’t _his_ parents be alive? Why couldn’t there be a world where they stopped Wormtail before he had a chance to betray them?

   As he thought this Harry realised with a jolt there probably was. Somewhere in another universe, there was a Harry Potter that got the life he deserved, the family he had always dreamed of. But that wasn’t his life, and the more he tormented himself, the harder it was going to be.

   “I love you,” he said thickly. “Please remember that.” He didn’t look at him directly, but Harry could see concern cross James’ face.

   “I love you too,” he said slowly.

   Harry stood up, unravelling himself from a surprised looking Sarah. He grabbed her hand. “And you,” he said, physical panic gripping him now. He didn’t if know if he could do this. “I have to go now.”

   “Harry,” said Remus carefully, standing from his chair. “What’s going on?”

   “Goodbye,” he whispered, and with that he was out the door, down past his own bedroom and onto the lower flight of stairs.

   “Harry?” came James’ voice, but Harry didn’t pause in his step. He was back in the kitchen, being handed the letter by Sirius.

   “Goodbye,” he told him, as Harry pulled his wand out with a trembling hand. “Good luck.”

   Lily pulled him into a hug. “We’ll never forget you,” she said. “What you’ve done for us.”

   “Me either,” said Harry, pulling back, knowing he only had moments before James and Remus followed him, and he couldn’t take seeing them again. “You’ll explain wont you,” he said. “To them, and Parvati, Hermione.” He prepared to fire the spell. “And Draco, make sure Draco knows everything too.” They nodded, and before Harry could change his mind, he whispered “I love you,” then took aim at the parchment.

   The room exploded with light and thunder roared above him. Sirius and Lily jumped back, hands over their ears, as the others reached the kitchen doorway. Harry lurched forward, a distinct feeling of watching himself do so as he hurtled through the barrier, back to his own world.

   And then, once more, everything was black.

 

***

 

   Harry couldn’t seem to open his eyes. Fear washed over him and he tried to work out his surroundings; he was definitely lying down, and there was a cool breeze blowing from behind. Something was crunching underneath him as he moved.

   First one eyelid finally obeyed, then the other, and Harry was rewarded with weak midday sun shining through the broken window of the old History of Magic classroom. He propped himself up. He was in his own clothes, Peeves’ same rude words were scribbled on the blackboard, his arm no longer ached. He was home.

   Overwhelmed with emotion, Harry dropped back down again onto the glass, curled into a ball, and began to shake. He grieved. He grieved for parents he never even knew, a sister who would never be born. He grieved for Seamus and his family, for Parvati, Hermione…Draco. He grieved for the fate of Sirius and Remus.

   He lay like that for a long while, so many thoughts racing through his head it made him dizzy. He gradually relaxed his cramped position, until eventually rolling onto his back, making the glass crunch. His eyes were stinging and his breath was still shuddering, but he was feeling slightly calmer once more. He ran his hands through his now clean hair and stared at the ceiling.

   He checked his watch. He’d only been out a couple of hours this time, enough for the early November sun to rise to the highest it was going to get.

   What the Hell was he supposed to do now?

   He was still in exactly the same position as when he left. Sirius was still locked up, waiting to get his soul sucked right out of his face for a crime he didn’t commit, and the Ministry were no closer to listening to him than before. He thought of the world he’d just lost, the unattainability of it pressing down on him. Sirius had looked so healthy, so alive. His life here had been stolen from him, almost as much as it had from his parents. If only Harry could change it, if only...

   His mind strayed to the Mirror of Erised, where he had just retrieved the Philosopher’s Stone. When he’d stumbled upon in all those Christmases ago he thought that would be the closest he’d ever get to seeing his family. And now they were torturously dangling out of his reach. He wondered how long it had taken the other Harry to wake up, imagined Lily looking after him, explaining what had happened in his absence. He thought of Sarah, his wildcat of a sister, who he would never even have a photo of to remind him like he did his parents.

   Dumbledore had stopped him looking in that mirror though, moved it away so he couldn’t torment himself like he was now. “It does not do to dwell on dreams,” he had told him. “And forget to live.”

   Harry sat up, the glass tinkling off his back. He couldn’t just sit there feeling sorry for himself. He couldn’t let the memory of a life that never was crush him down. Sirius needed him, more now than ever. He just needed them to see the truth, what was really going on. He had to _make_ them see. He’d been through the impossible in the last forty eight hours, he could make it this much further. He had to.

   He had an idea. He stood up, feeling pretty shaky but better than when he had woken up in Godric’s Hollow. He shook the glass from his clothes, then mended the broken window with a flick of his wand. He grabbed the handle of the door, heaved it open, and stepped out into the castle corridor. His mind made up, he began walking quickly towards the Gryffindor common room.

   As it was nearly twelve, most people should have been down in the Great Hall having lunch, and Harry almost made it all the way to the tower without seeing anyone. Almost.

   “Oi! Potter!” crowed a voice from behind him that was obviously very pleased with itself. Harry stopped walking, not really wanting to turn around. When he did, he was met with the sight of Draco Malfoy striding down the corridor, immaculate robes billowing behind him, smarmy grin on his face.

   After Harry got over the irony that out of all the hundreds of students at this school, he had to run into Draco, he was struck by just how much smaller he seemed to look. When he came to a halt and folded his arms, Harry could see he was still taller than him, but the way he stood, they way he held himself, was a sharp contrast to the boy that had leapt to his defence and saved his life in the German underground.

   “Well if it isn’t old Scarhead,” he spat out, his voice clipped and shrill. “Thought you’d be hiding out until at least Thursday, or have you decided you want me to knock you off your broom after all?” Harry didn’t know what to say. He was still sleep deprived and trying to work out how to save Sirius’ life, still attempting to come to terms with the life he had just lost. If he needed any more confirmation that he was back home it was standing right in front of him.

   Malfoy leaned in, staring at him. “The Quidditch match next week, Potter, I asked you if you were _scared?”_

   But Harry just tilted his head to the side, looking at the Slytherin boy before him, and felt a smile creep onto in face. “What?” demanded Malfoy, his hand flying up to check his hair. “What are you laughing at?” But Harry’s smile just broadened, and he chuckled softly to himself. “Potter, I swear-”

   Harry interrupted him. He took a step closer, making Malfoy jump and step back against the wall. Their faces were the closest they ever been in this world.

   “What the Hell are you playing at Potter?!” cried Malfoy, furious. But Harry just laughed again.

   “I see right through you Draco,” he said, almost enjoying his confusion at using his first name. “You’re a sad little boy, stomping and shouting so everybody notices. It’s all a big show, I don’t think even you know how big it is.” Harry folded his arms and smiled again. “But do you know what, I think I finally do. I see right through you now.”

   Malfoy’s fists were clenched, eyes weary as he shifted against the wall. “Shut it, Potter,” he said, but his voice had lost its earlier conviction.

   Harry was already turning and walking away though. “Goodbye Draco,” he murmured to himself. “Nice knowing you.”

 

***

 

   The Fat Lady practically pitched a fit when she caught sight of Harry. “Oh my goodness, oh my goodness!” she started gushing, flapping her arms about. “Is it really you? Oh _where_ have you been!”

   “Shh!” Harry said, trying to calm her. “Yes it’s me, and it’s a long story. I don’t want anyone to know I’m back yet. It’s really important. So – can I just get in – _Cauldron Cakes.”_

   She looked about, nervous. “Well of course we changed the password dear, we thought there was a major security breach.”

   “What!” cried Harry. “You’ve got to be kidding, _Cauldron Cakes, Cauldron Cakes!”_

   “I’m sorry dear!” said the Fat Lady, genuinely upset. “But who’s to say you’re not an imposter!”

   Harry began pacing, starting to think of his options, when he heard voices coming from the other direction. He scooted up and away, ducking behind a suit of armour, as Colin Creevey’s younger brother Dennis walked up to the portrait chatting with Natalie McDonald. Harry knew her as one of the Chasers on Gryffindor’s reserve team.

   “Hello dears,” said the Fat Lady hurriedly. “Would you mind whispering the password today, I’ve got an awful headache.”

   “Oh I’m sorry,” said Natalie, sympathetically, as Dennis said;

   “Have you taken any paracetamol.”

   Natalie sighed. “She’s a _painting_ Dennis, she can’t take medicine.”

   Harry saw Dennis look the portrait up and down. “Then how does she even get a headache in the first place.”

   “Chop, chop!” cried the Fat Lady, slightly shrill, then remembered she was supposed to be whispering. “In you go.” The two second years shrugged and leant in to say whatever the password was. Harry watched the golden frame swing open to reveal the tunnel behind, and waited unlit the portrait began to swing shut again to bolt it over. He stuck his fingers in the gap just before it closed.

   “What are you doing?” cried the lady, looking down in horror at Harry.

   “It’s an emergency,” he grunted, pulling the picture frame back open. “I’m sorry, I’ll explain it all later.”

“Help!” yelled the Fat Lady as Harry scurried in and swung the portrait behind him. “Sir Cadogan! It’s an emergency!”

   He’d hoped that Dennis and Natalie would have carried on up to their respective dormitories, but they’d been waylaid by several other second years in the common room. Why aren’t you eating lunch? thought Harry crossly as he sprinted across the room towards the boys’ fifth year room.

   “Harry?” called Natalie after him. Harry flew past them without even looking round. As he took the stairs two at a time they all slammed back their chairs and ran after him. Harry banged open his bedroom door and pulled his trunk from under his bed; yanking the lid open, it only took a couple of seconds to find what he was looking for. His father’s Invisibility Cloak.

      Just as he flung it over his head, two of the second years, Dennis and another boy Harry didn’t know, came pelting into the room. Harry stood quietly up as the boys looked around the empty room, confused. Natalie McDonald charged in after them.

   “Where is he?” she panted.

   “I dunno,” said Dennis, “he definitely came in here, and that’s his trunk opened over there.”

   “Was it really him?” squeaked another girl beside Natalie. Dennis nodded.

   “Definitely,” he said resolutely.

   “I think we need to get Dumbledore,” said Natalie. The others agreed and ran back down the stairs. Harry watched them go.

   He readjusted the cloak on his shoulders, closed his trunk, and hurried over to the door. He had wanted the cloak precisely for that reason. There was a lot of people he knew would be very eager to sit him down, make a big fuss over him and then grill him for every last detail of what had happened. And he would be happy to do that later, but right now time was slipping away from him and there wasn’t a moment to spare.

   Except...An urge suddenly came over him. He would have time, if he was quick.

   He dashed back through the common room and pushed the portrait of the Fat Lady open hastily, making her jump. He raced along the corridors and down the stairs, taking all the short-cuts he knew to the Great Hall; he wanted to get there before the second years.

      One of the doors was ajar when he reached it, just enough for him to peer in and see the tables. His heart caught in his mouth as his eyes found the Gryffindor table. Ron, with his shinning red hair, was sitting next to Hermione, who both looked like they hadn’t eaten or slept since Harry’s departure two days ago. Seamus was opposite them, very much alive, and talking with Dean Thomas. Ginny and the twins were sitting by Ron, looking just as sick with worry as he did, and a little further down Harry could see Parvati sitting with her best friend Lavender Brown. They were all here, he told himself, pushing down the lump in his throat. They were alive and they were okay.

   The sound of running feet pounding on the stone enabled Harry to step out of the way just in time. The second years hurtled themselves at the doors just as Harry moved away from it. The doors flew fully open on their hinges and banged into the wall, making everyone in the hall stop talking and turn round in surprise.

   Natalie McDonald, who was in the lead, was the first to recover her breath and speak. She leant on her knees for a second, before straightening and addressing the teacher’s table. “Professor Dumbledore!” she cried as the headmaster rose to his feet. “We’ve just seen Harry Potter!”

   The hall erupted with noise. Ron and Hermione scrambled from their bench unceremoniously in the effort to get to the second years as quickly as possible. Ron gave up and actually climbed _over_ the table and reached her first. As he grabbed Natalie by the shoulders, Dumbledore fired a blue explosion out of his wand, calling for silence. Everybody stopped moving. Ron and Hermione were both crouched in front of the young chaser.

   “What do mean,” said Ron, trying to remain calm. “Where did you see him?”

   “In the common room, just now,” said Natalie loud enough so everyone could here. “We all saw him, I swear Professor, but then he disappeared”

   Dumbledore didn’t need convincing. Orders were quickly given to search the castle, but Harry didn’t stay long enough to find out the particulars, he had already stayed too long.

   He turned and headed towards the dungeons. It was as freezing as ever down there, but Harry didn’t let that slow him down. He kept running until he was in front of Snape’s huge potion cupboard. He had the doors unlocked in no time and started rummaging round for what he wanted. He quickly established it wasn’t on the first shelf, so moved to the second, then third. “Come on, come on,” he muttered, starting to panic. He could hear footsteps, and although he was invisible, he knew it wouldn’t take a genius to question why glass bottles were floating round seemingly of their own accord.

   Finally, in the very corner of the second to highest shelf, he found the tiny phial tucked away at the back. Relief washed over him as he snatched it up, closed and sealed the cupboard doors, then slipped the phial into his pocket.

   Except something was already in it.

   Harry gasped. He knew someone was heading down there, but he pulled himself into the shadows and fished out the other item. It was a photograph. Of the Potters.

   Harry felt tears prick at his already tired eyes as Sarah punched the other Harry on the arm, then gave James an innocent grin. Lily frowned at Sarah and put a protective arm around Harry. Harry poked his tongue out at Sarah, and the whole process began again.

   At that moment Snape appeared, his wand lit and aloft, and Harry had to slip past him as he wondered how on Earth the photo, the same one that had saved him against the Dementors, had travelled back through realities with him.

   But then his wand had been very similar too, hadn’t it?

 

***

 

   It took Harry a while to weave his way past everyone running around the corridors of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Prefects were working with teachers looking for him; he wasn’t surprised to find Malfoy leading those from Slytherin in a sulky revolt. “But _why_ do we have to look for him?” he demanded of an harassed looking Madam Hooch. “Some of us couldn’t care less if he never came back!”

   On another day he might have been flattered that everyone else was going to such an effort for him, but he kept his thoughts on task. He had to wait a few minutes before the corridor was clear, then banged on Professor McGonagall’s door. She opened it a second later, and looked confused until Harry pulled off the hood of his cloak.

   “Potter!” she cried, threw her arm over where she guessed his back to be, and shoved him into her office. “Where the Devil have you been,” she said, slamming the door shut. “Why are you hiding?” Harry whipped off his cloak and stuffed it into his pocket. Her office was a state, nothing like it normally was. Harry wondered if it had something to do with his search.

   “I’m sorry,” he panted after all his sprinting. “But I can’t be delayed, I’ll explain everything, but I need to get to the Ministry. Hermione told me once you had direct access.”

   McGonagall looked him up and down. “Is this to do with Sirius?” she said softly, as if worried they would be overheard. Harry nodded. Without another word she conjured a fire in the mantel and threw some of the familiar Floo powder in. She muttered instructions into the flames.

   Satisfied, she sat down amongst the debris at her desk, calmly pulled on her spectacles and began reading a document she’d plucked from the mess. Harry looked unsure. “I’ll explain when I get back,” he said again, not sure if he should hurry and get in the fire. “If people knew I was here though they’d stop me, and-”

   “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Potter,” she said, half a smile on her lips. “I never even saw you.”

 

***

 

   Harry had expected to land in the foyer of the Ministry, like he had done over the summer, but instead he fell out of a single fireplace onto a red carpet that ran down a short white marble corridor. Waist high gold posts, connected with a thick red chord, ran along either side of him until the end of the corridor, where there stood a very tidy desk on a crossroads. There were sleepy portraits of previous Ministers hanging from the walls.

   A short little man in his fifties with a head that would have belonged more on a gnome sat at the desk. He looked incredulous as Harry regained his balance then walked hurriedly towards him. “Erm, excuse me!” he said in a nasally voice, hefting up his robes as he stood. “That fireplace is reserved for Hogwarts staff only!”

   “And where do you think I came from,” said Harry, more abrasively than he meant to. He reached the end of the corridor and looked up and down. “I need to see the Minister, it’s urgent.” But before the man even started his reply Harry could see where he was, and couldn’t believe his luck. There were two other fireplaces down identical corridors, in front and to his left, with plaques that said ‘Foreign Dignitaries’ and ‘The Ministry Foyer’ respectfully. The one behind him unsurprisingly read ‘Hogwarts School’. The short corridor to his right ended with a door, and this plaque was quite a bit bigger and read ‘Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic.’

“You are not a teacher you are a student,” said the gnome man pointedly, rushing around his desk and standing between Harry and the door. “You are absolutely not authorised to be here!”

   “McGonagall authorised me,” he said distractedly, ignoring the man and heading for the door. Rather than try and stop him, the man spun around and activated what Harry guessed to be some sort of communications device.

   “Minister,” the man snapped petulantly into a miniature gramophone. “Harry Potter is here demanding to see you.” Harry spun around and looked at him.

   “So you know who I am?” he said, curious more than anything, but the man just scowled and listened for his response.

   Harry heard the Minister clear his throat. “And what,” said the tinny voice slowly. “Does Mr Potter want?”

   The man raised his eyebrows and held his hand out, the other on his hip, indicating Harry should reply. Harry moved closer a step and raised his voice. “To talk about Sirius Black,” he said. He felt a surge of confidence roll through him. He’d seen unimaginable horrors in the last few hours, things that would never stop haunting him. A couple of bureaucrats weren’t going to scare him off.

   “Call security,” came the contrite voice. Harry lunged for the gramophone.

   “What are you frightened of, Fudge?” Harry breathed into the device as a delighted gnome man whizzed a paper memo into the flames that led to the rest of the Ministry. “Afraid to let anyone defend a man that’s never had a trial, that’s been set up from the start? I’m sure Rita Skeeter would love to run a story on that, don’t you think? I’m sure that would go down a treat in your opinion polls.”

   There was a crackle at the end of the line. He really didn’t want to have to attempt to break down the door, he was sure it wouldn’t end well.

   Just when Harry was sure he wasn’t going to answer, Fudge cleared his throat. “Very well,” he said, much to gnome man’s dismay. “You have five minutes, then I’m handing you over to security.”

   The door to his office clicked open, and before he could change his mind, or his receptionist could stop him, Harry fired himself at the door, pulled it open and jumped into the office.  

   Harry closed the door, shutting out the bright light from the marbled corridor and plunging the office into gloom. Fudge’s walls were covered almost solely with his accolades; photos populated by himself shaking hands with famous celebrities and politicians, certificates of education and achievement, thank you letters from grateful patrons.

   “Hello Harry,” said the Minister pleasantly from behind his desk. “Dumbledore has been in quite a state as to your whereabouts these past couple of days, he will be delighted to know you are here and safe.” There was a touch of mocking in his tone that didn’t pass Harry by. He couldn’t be sure, but if he had to guess he’d say that Fudge would be as unhelpful as possible in a missing persons investigation concerning him.

   Harry gritted his teeth and sat in the chair opposite Fudge’s. “I’m here to talk about your completely unfair imprisonment and sentencing of my godfather.”

   Fudge looked uncomfortable. “Sirius Black is a murderer, Harry,” he said, almost sympathetically. “He murdered your parents, or have you forgotten that?”

   “Says who?” Harry demanded. “I know you never gave him a trail, Barty Crouch Senior wanted to distance himself from his son’s betrayal so he made an example of him.”

   Fudge’s eyes narrowed angrily. “Harry, this is not the first time you have implicated upstanding members of our community to me. You need to watch yourself. Your claims regarding He-Who-Must-Not be named this summer have verged on lunacy, and-!” he continued as Harry started to shout over him, “I have always questioned your participation in Black’s escape from Hogwarts School the summer previous! I seem to remember then you tried to tell us all some tall tale about Black, I flattered you it was some sort of residual effect from a curse of Black’s, but – perhaps not.”

   Harry stared at him a moment. “What’s _wrong_ with you?” he said, trembling in anger. “Would you rather be right than save people’s lives!”

   Fudge leant forward on his desk, barely suppressing the curl on his lip.   “The facts are right in front of us, Mr Potter, whether you like them or not. I can’t imagine what your problem is quite frankly, he is responsible for the death of your parents.”

   Harry shook his head disbelievingly. “What _facts_ ,” he whispered. “Did you even _ask_ him what happened? Peter Pettigrew betrayed my parents and _Peter Pettigrew_ brought You-Know-Who back!”

   “You expect him to tell the truth do you Mr Potter?” replied Fudge, getting irritated. “He is a murderer, plain and simple.”

   “I’m afraid plain and simple doesn’t work nowadays,” said Harry, rising to his feet. There was a knock on the door as someone, probably security, called to see if the Minister was alright. “I don’t actually know who’s more dangerous,” Harry continued, staring Fudge down. “At least everyone knows Voldemort’s the bad guy.” Fudge flinched at the use of the Dark Lord’s name.

   “How dare you say that word!” he hissed. “I have had enough of your nonsense.” He reached forward across his desk, perhaps to use the intercom, perhaps to release the door, but Harry’s arm shot out in an instant, seizing his hand before he reached his target.

   “I don’t care if you believe me that Voldemort is back, because he is and you will realise it soon enough.” He reached into his pocket with his spare hand, feeling the photograph as he did, then pulled out the phial of Veritaserum he had taken from Snape’s cupboard.

   “But I do care about my godfather, and I won’t let you get away with this.” The guards were really pounding on the door now, and Harry could see Fudge’s eyes flicking towards them. He turned over his hand, getting the Minister’s attention, and placed the truth serum into his palm.

   “Now,” said Harry, looming over Cornelius Fudge. “Are you going to prove Sirius’ innocence, or am I?”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's almost the end, but obviously there's quite a lot of lose ends still! Keep reading for the little epilogue, and then feel free to ask any questions or voice any theories, I'd love to hear what you think!


	9. The Man Who Sold The World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So it’s all sorted? All lose ends tied up, all business finished? We don’t have to worry about Harry Potter anymore?” Jia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to Alex for the conclusion of Book One...

Epilogue -

   The Man Who Sold The World

  

We passed upon the stair, we spoke of was and when

Although I wasn't there, he said I was his friend

Which came as some surprise I spoke into his eyes

I thought you died alone, a long long time ago

 

Oh no, not me

I never lost control

You're face to face

With The Man Who Sold The World

 

I laughed and shook his hand, and made my way back home

I searched for form and land, for years and years I roamed

I gazed a gazely stare at all the millions here

We must have died alone, a long long time ago

 

Who knows? not me

We never lost control

You're face to face

With the Man who Sold the World

 

David Bowie

 

   “See,” said Alex. “I told you everything would be fine.”

   “Fine?” repeated Jia, from behind her hands. “Seriously?”

   Alex shifted in his chair on the other side of Jia’s desk, his brown files held together with rubber bands cradled in his lap. “Well,” he said, tilting his head in thought. “He got home didn’t he?”

   “After just a _spot_ of bother, wouldn’t you agree?” cried Jia, her hands falling to her desk with a smack. “I haven’t slept seventy two hours!”

   “Yes,” said Alex amicably. “But technically you don’t need to sleep now do you?”

   Jia just glared.

   “He saved the world!” said Alex, wobbling his head at his boss in hopes of getting a smile from her. “He destroyed Voldemort – again – he saved his little sis, it’s great.”

   “It’s a lot of paper work,” said Jia straight faced, dropping a pile of forms in front of him.

   “Which I will do gladly.”

   “Good,” said Jia, leaning back in her chair, the tiniest twitch of a smile on her lips. “Then you can do mine too.”

   Alex barked out a laugh and rocked back and forth in his seat in glee, his feet dancing under the desk. “Oh you’ve got to admit he’s got style hasn’t he, sweeping in and saving everyone like that. And Draco Malfoy! I did not see that one coming, I wish my one could be a bit more like that, rather than running around being everyone else’s childhood traumas. I could do with a bit more bravery from him.”

   Jia sighed, but the real anger seemed to have dissipated. “What about the doorway between worlds, it’s weakened now, do you think anyone will be falling through it any time soon?”

   Alex made a popping noise with his mouth. “Don’t believe so, only Harry knows it’s there and I think he’s had enough excitement for now. I’m sure he’ll spend the next five years playing Monopoly and drinking Chamomile tea.”

   “Yes I’m sure that’s exactly what he’ll do,” replied Jia dryly. She picked up her nearest coffee mug and toyed with it. “Oh alright,” she said eventually. “Well done for not ending the Multiverse, I’m glad we’re all still here.”

   “Well said,” agreed Alex. “But really I did very little this time round, there wasn’t much I could do.” He pulled a face. “Last time I had to pull people down here and give them a good telling off, it was a nightmare.”

   “So it’s all sorted?” asked Jia tiredly. “All lose ends tied up, all business finished? We don’t have to worry about Harry Potter anymore?”

   “Yes,” said Alex rising to his feet and hoisting his papers all together. “All taken care of, nothing more to trouble us.”

   Jia smiled and tapped her index finger on her coffee mug. “Marvellous.”

   But before Alex could even take a step, the door behind him burst open to reveal Jia’s new Watcher, the one from the universe Alex’s Harry Potter had created. He was young but already showing a great deal of enthusiasm for the job. Right now however, all he was showing was an inability to stand up, draw breath or form a coherent word.

   “What’s wrong?” said Jia alarmed, rising to her feet as the boy sucked in a lungful of air, straightened up his back and held out a single sheet of paper for Alex and Jia to see.

   “I could be wrong,” said Seamus Finnigan. “But I think we have a _serious_ problem.”

 

 

End of Book One

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...did you see that coming?

**Author's Note:**

> Well, there we go, that's the end of Book One of The Dream Trilogy! I really hoped you enjoyed it, and if you did, please remember to leave kudos and a review. I love hearing back from readers and reply to every single comment I get, so go nuts!
> 
> Thank you for reading, and I hope you'll join me as we start Book Two: Tread On My Dreams. In the meantime, please come and find us over on Tumblr and Facebook for all the fun extra stuff that accompanies the trilogy! Both accounts are called The HP Dream Trilogy, and on Tumblr my URL is @thehpdreamtrilogy - I also tag all my book related posts with #The HP Dream Trilogy if you want to follow that.
> 
> Okay, that's it from me. Thank you so much again for reading!
> 
> Hxxx


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